Posted By:
Hal LewisThe 1918 date to which you refer was for the "Honus Wagner" cigar box that sold recently.
That is an entirely different brand from an entirely different cigar maker.
Yes, it re-uses the old picture of Wagner from his Reccius card...
but it is NOT a "Henry Reccius" cigar box.
Nor is it a "Hans" Wagner box, which is how the Reccius card addresses him.
To date, there has NEVER (according to the curator of the Cigar Box and Label Museum) been ANY type of "packaging" ever found that says "Henry Reccius" on it, whether it be "Hans Wagner" cigars or any other brand.
Based on this total lack of packaging evidence, the curator believes, based on the "License Number" assigned to Reccius from the government, that he was a small-time "jobber" in Louisville in the 1890's who probably made cigars to sell to OTHER cigar companies for their brands.
The "Hans Wagner" cigars were probably just distributed to Reccius's customers and to local cigar stores to try and get his name out there so that people would remember him over the 2,000 other "jobbers" who were rolling cigars at the time.
According to the curator, these jobbers did not have their own fancy boxes... but basically just re-used plain old cigar boxes they had laying around.