already too many bids

[Michael B]

I mentioned a few things about this box before, yet there is one item that everyone has missed. The label is oriented portrait when it should be landscape. When you open a cigar box you open it on the long side with the label facing you so that you could read it and the cigars laying horizontally in front of you. You would not have to turn the box to see the graphics. No cigar maker is that stupid. As is clearly shown the cloth cover pull is on the long side of the box, therefore it would open as such:

cigar box 1.jpg

If they intended it to open on the short end the cover pull would be on that end and the label as shown would be correct and the cigars would be vertical in front of you. It would look like this:

cigar box 2.jpg

That is not a cigar label, no way, no how. It was probably put on there many years ago as you can see a bright green portion of the design on the lower edge below the reclining player where this 'cover' was chipped. As I pointed out before a cigar manufacturer would take great pride in the presentation of his box. That is how he sold his product. There is no way on God's green earth he would rip the label so that it would fit around the cloth cover pull. He would have either printed a smaller label or attached the pull under the lip of the box so that it would protrude out the front like a tongue.

One person suggested that the inside label was removed. I believe that is incorrect. There is white paper on the inside of the cover. It is stained. If there was a label removed you would see the wood of the box. There was a T.F. McMain of Westfield, MA (west of Springfield) who on July 16, 1873 applied for a patent for a tobacco stripping and smoothing machine. They used to grow tobacco out there and may still do so. My aunt and uncle lived in Westfield in the 1960's. We would visit when I was little. There was a gully behind their house. We would follow it down to what I thought was a river and there were tobacco fields on the other side.