Lucky Strike is not only still around, it’s one of British American Tobacco Plc’s four global “drive” brands. However, it’s sold mainly outside the U.S. now – Germany, Spain, Japan, France and Argentina are among key markets,according to BAT’s website. By volume, Lucky Strike sales rose 9 percent to 25 billion cigarettes in 2008.
My wife is a very brand-loyal Vantage Menthol smoker, and is always on the look-out for a store that sells them.
Most people can’t tell the difference between their favorite brand and others in blind tests. Marlboro was a failed cigarette brand aimed at women until they branded it as a manly smoke for the rugged individual.
Odesio
Tarrytons are still around. Tarryton Lights, which was my brand of choice in the 1970s, seems to have disappeared. I see Kent in large tobaco stores, but not your basic grocery store rack.
I remember a brand called True that seems to have faded away.
Phillip Morris Commanders.
They probably were never popular in the US, but my aunt used to smoke du Mauriers (until she developed cancer).
There was a Spud cigarettes in the 1930s
Players with that theme are still sold today in Canada - they were my parents’ choice. Then Mom quit and Dad got cheap and rolls his own.
Yep. I smoked True Cigarettes for a couple years. They were very mild, heavily filtered.
My dad smoked Viceroys, and a little bitch called “Between the Acts.” They came in a tin box of 10, I believe. When I tried one I gagged and coughed and almost barfed. STRONG is the word for these little monsters.
Never could finish one.
Oh yeah, dad died of a heart attack at 59 yrs old.
Hello, my name is xiaowenti and I am a smoker. Who hasn’t had a cigarette in nearly 13 years. I was hard core – I smoked Pall Mall unfiltered. I think that it is nearly impossible now to find an unfiltered cig (but as I do not smoke, I do not know definitively). Father - Camels (un), mother Winstons, Grandparents, Chesterfields. Aunt (Pall Malls (un)).
There’s a thread on the Urban Toronto forum showing pictures of a grittier and less cosmopolitan Toronto in the mid-twentieth century; the number of tobacco ads on buildings is remarkable.
This applies to the southern U.S.
Lucky Strike non-filtered are still available just about everywhere. The Filters are hard to find and I read that they recently stopped making Lucky Lights.
I have been an on and off Benson & Hedges smoker for 20 years and they’re still available, but never on sale, so they’re full premium price (about $45 a carton here).
Pall Mall redesigned their packs about 10 years ago and became a cheap brand and are available everywhere. The non-filters are still a premium, in their original pack, and harder to find.
Chesterfield non-filter used to be everywhere, but I haven’t looked in years. I know they’re still available, because I’ve seen people smoking them. There are Chesterfield filters and lights available in overseas markets. I haven’t seen the 101’s since I was a kid (although Camel’s long cigarettes are now called 99’s…one silly millimeter shorter?)
Parliaments are everywhere and even available in Menthol and Full Flavor, and were cheap for a while. Not so sure now. A good friend of mine smokes Parliament Lights.
There was a U.S. version of Players that I used to get sometimes when I was a teenager…they came in a black pack. I haven’t seen those in years. When I go to Canada, I see them everywhere, but not in the black pack.
Raleighs and BelAires used to be at most stores, but hidden behind the counter, and then they redesigned the packs and they became a cheap brand sometime in the early 90s. I haven’t seen Raleighs in years, but I’m pretty sure I saw BelAires in their classic pack in a tobacco shop recently.
I bought a pack of Tareytons sometime in the past two years, so I guess they’re still around. Haven’t seen them since though.
Kent is definitely still around, but they don’t taste the same as they did years ago. Not sure about Viceroy.
L&M recently redesigned their pack and became a cheap brand. They taste like they’re made with the loose tobacco swept up off the floor at the cigarette factory.
I saw True on display at a gas station a few months ago and picked up a pack. They still have that funny little plastic insert in the filter and still feel like you’re smoking air.
I still remember the very distinctive smell of a Winston…they actually smelled good. When they switched over to their “no additives” blend about 10 years ago, they never tasted or smelled the same again.
In San Francisco and Portland I see people smoking Parliament Lights more than any other brand other than Marlboro Lights.
They are extremely popular.
Haven’t seen Picayune mentioned. Unfiltered, strong enough to use as a weapon.
You can buy them here. 
English Ovals? (not impossible to find in central NJ in the early 1970s)
And in New York as far back as the 1920’s, which is about the provenance of this (now covered) wall sign.
My parents used to smoke Vantage, haven’t seen those for awhile. Oh, fond childhood memories of being made to walk to the store to buy my mom cigarettes. I remember the pack had a blue target on it.
I hosted a visiting artist guy from Sweden in grad school 6 years ago, and he only smoked Lucky Strike. Easy to find in Sweden, hard to find in the US, apparently.
Now I smoke Swisher Sweets Little Cigars Milds, and those are getting really hard to find for some reason.
Virginia Slims
Slogan: “You’ve got your own cigarette now baby, you’ve come a long, long way!!”
Ad showing woman with a job, enjoying a smoke. Might be seen as a ‘little’ sexist now.
Both my parents smoked Camel “shorts.” The last time I was able to actually talk to my father he was in the sun room of the Cleveland Clinic with a Camel in one hand and a ventilator mouth piece in the other. Mother gave up smoking about 40 years ago. Of course, I smoked Camels as a youth and in the Army. A carton of cigs at the PX was $2.50. Two packs would fit nicely in an ammo pouch. Grandmother smoked Pall Malls – as far as I could tell they were just long Camels.
Half packs of cigarettes came with Army field rations. The Army gave us Green Circle Luckies and Chesterfields. You had to be careful of the Luckies because they had been packed before the Korean War and when lit tended to flair up enough to set fire to your nose hair.
After much brow-beating by Mrs G I switched to a pipe as a compromise that got her off my back and still allowed a nicotine fix. That was more than 35 years ago. I still yearn for a Camel every once in a while.
Both of my parents used to smoke True Blue 100s, which I have not seen in a long time, but my mom didn’t smoke for most of my life until after my dad died in 2002. Now she smokes Marlboro Lights.