Everything you wanted to know about the history of Cigar Box Openers.

[El Presidente]

This is indeed the most comprehensive paper on Cigar box openers I have ever read. Worth the read over a cigar and a tipple. 

 

Cigar Box Openers

A National Cigar History Museum Exhibit

© Tony Hyman, All rights reserved

 

Based in part on research and categorization by Mike Schwimmer,

self-published in 1997 as a 43 page photocopy entitled

ADVERTISING CIGAR BOX OPENERS.

Unless otherwise noted, all openers are in the NCHM collection.

Two openers added: June 2, 2010

        Although cigar boxes had been around since the early 1800’s, they were not widely available in consumer sizes. Pre-1860 documents suggest only one cigar in ten was purchased in or from a consumer-size box of 25, 50 or 100.  All that changed in 1863 when the need for money to fight the Civil War resulted in a series of tax laws that mandated cigar boxes into universal use. Every cigar after that date had to be packed in and sold from a box. Those Civil War revenue laws required tax stamps to be wrapped around the box, and after 1868, added other labeling and the provision that those stamps must be destroyed when the box was opened.  That same year, 1868, the first cigar box opener was patented.

        A century later, box-opener collector Mike Schwimmer asked: “Why cigar box openers? Pocket knives, table knives, screw drivers and assorted other household implements were available to do the relatively simple job of opening up a wooden cigar box.” He decided, “Yes, and you can cut your fingernails with a scissors, too, but the proper tool always gets the job done best and faster.”

        Cigar box openers were designed to slit the advertising label pasted on the end of the box, irrevocably damage the tax stamp, pry up the nail that sealed the box, and, if desired, pound that nail back in...and to do those tasks quickly and with minimal damage to the box.

     

 

    During the next half century, an amazing variety of shapes and sizes, some not  patented, appeared. Most were of steel and had three common characteristics: “First, a tapered edge or blade to slit the tax stamp and decorative labels; second, a small notch to catch the lid nail and pry up the lid; and third, a hammer-like protrusion or a heavy flat surface to pound the lid shut again.”

      In his 1997 treatise, Schwimmer cataloged 160+ different shapes, divided into 15 types, including multi-purpose openers with knives, bottle openers or cigar cutters. I have subdivided or otherwise refined his categories and added two more to include openers that did not contain advertising.

 

        

 

Not surprisingly the 1st patent box opener looks a lot like a pocket knife, every male’s companion. The 1868 patent describes it an improve-ment on a box opener patented in  1864 by being designed specifically for the needs of a cigar seller, notably constantly opening and re-closing boxes. Frequent opening and closing was normal at that time because the humidified showcase in which boxes were displayed open was still a few years away.

 

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