Cigarette brands that used to be popular, but which are now rare or nonexistent

[Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker]

@M60TankDriver

. . . Silva Thins (featuring a sauve James Bond-type dude with wraparound sunglasses). . . .

Personally, I always thought he was supposed to be gay. He’s just too well dressed, and he’s always trying to keep women from stealing his cigs.

[FuriousGeorge]

@That_Don_Guy

And before then, cigarette packs had the original baseball cards on them. This is why Honus Wagner cards are so rare - as a nonsmoker, he demanded that whatever company was releasing the cards not include his card any more.

This is the commonly told story, but there is more and more evidence that it was simply he wasn’t getting paid enough or at all for the image being sent out. There are Wagner advertisements pre-T206 for tobacco products as well as purported pics of Wagner himself with a nice chaw of his own.

About midway down.

[kopek]

I remember smoking these odd early “tobacco substitute” things for a while; “Triumphs”. Nasty as Hell but they were like 1/3 the cost of regular cigarettes. And this was back when a pack was under 75 cents.

I also remember Harley-Davidson having their own smokes for a while. Forget who made them but they weren’t bad.

[Frank]

@M60TankDriver

Grew up in the 1960s, and here’s the cigarette ads I most remember:

1. Winston.
2. Salem.
3. Kent.
4. Lark.
5. Tareyton.
6. Benson & Hedges.
7. Marlboro
8. Kool.
9. Parliament.
10. BelAir.
11. Newport.
12. Camel.

1, 2, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12 are still to varying degrees popular today. 7 is still the best selling brand of all time.

[Saintly_Loser]

@norvalnormal

Ye gods, how could I forget Old Golds? Yes, they were my go-to U.S. filtered cigarettes for a while in the ‘70s, with a distinctive (pls forgive the copywriters’ jargon) “sweet and mellow” taste

I remember Old Golds. I remember them as being regionally popular in the late 70s. You could find them in any store in upstate New York (Syracuse, Utica, maybe Buffalo, etc.), but they were next to impossible to find in New York City.

I haven’t seen them in years.

Here’s another – Benson & Hedges kings. They weren’t the same as the B&H 100s you see (or saw) everywhere. They were king-sized, and came in a flat box with a slide-out tray. You couldn’t find them everywhere, and they were a bit more expensive than regular smokes. My parents smoked these. They were very strong for filtered cigarettes.

[Mama_Zappa]

@M60TankDriver

…
6) Benson & Hedges. Famous for their 100mm cigarettes, which they turned into a memorable advertising campaign. To a terrific bossa-nova instrumental called “The Disadvantages of You” they’d show various scenes of the predicaments folks not used to such a long would get into (for instance, two guys are facing each other talking; one guy’s got the B&H 100 lit, and it goes into the other guy’s goatee, which starts smoking). …
Other notable cigarettes of the Sixties and early 70s (even if their TV commercials weren’t particularly noteworthy) were: Old Gold, L&M, Phillip Morris, Viceroy, Pall Mall (which as a kid I pronounced as “Paul Maul” instead of the correct “Pell Mell”!), Lucky Strike, Camel, Chesterfield, True, Vantage, Spring, York, Silva Thins (featuring a sauve James Bond-type dude with wraparound sunglasses), Oasis, Players, Carlton, and a couple aimed at women – Virginia Slims and Eve.

Benson and Hedges were actually 101 millimeters - “A silly millimeter longer - One Oh One!”.

I remember every brand you mentioned, and most of the jingles (yeesh - you can take Salem out of the country - BUT - you can’t take the country out of Salem!). And I never smoked or had any desire WHATSOEVER (Mom did and it grossed me out my entire life).

I recall the Eve cigarettes - “Pretty Eve”. They had flowers printed on the paper, I think.

[carnivorousplant]

I wish they still imported Sobraines Black Russians to the United States.

[kopek]

@carnivorousplant

I wish they still imported Sobraines Black Russians to the United States.

I thought they did. I could have sworn I saw them (with the classic gold filters) in a cigar/smoke shop this summer.

[justmeetee]

My favorite flavor, cherry red.

@Beware_of_Doug

That would be Hamm’s, the bear refreshing. Er, beer.

From the land of sky blue waters.

I smoked about a dozen different brands before I quit 19 years ago but always seemed to find my way back to Pall Mall non filters. Got started on them when I did a year as a guest of the state. Was smoking Salem menthol when I went in and was always being asked for one or for “shorts”(the last few drags) by the other “guests”. After I made the switch I actually got to smoke every cigarette in a pack and finish them.

[Spoons]

@Mama_Zappa

I recall the Eve cigarettes - “Pretty Eve”. They had flowers printed on the paper, I think.

They did. A garland of flowers around the filter.

One of my undergrad professors used to bum cigarettes from me. She always said, “I’ll pay you back,” and she always did–with Eve cigarettes. Not exactly the thing you want to be seen smoking while watching the game with your buddies.

[carnivorousplant]

@kopek

I thought they did. I could have sworn I saw them (with the classic gold filters) in a cigar/smoke shop this summer.

Please let me know the name of the shop if you see them again.

[syncrolecyne]

@pabstist

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.

I have the exact same memory, my mom would send me to the convenience store to get a pack of “Vantage Ultrlight 100s,” and I could buy a coke or candy with the change…thankfully, my mom quit smoking and I gave up cokes. But that brought back some politically incorrect childhood memories.

[Shoeless]

@syncrolecyne

I have the exact same memory, my mom would send me to the convenience store to get a pack of “Vantage Ultrlight 100s,” and I could buy a coke or candy with the change…thankfully, my mom quit smoking and I gave up cokes. But that brought back some politically incorrect childhood memories.

Ha! Yes, when I was about 10 or so (early 70s) my dad started sending me on cigarette runs to the local pharmacy to pick him up a couple of packs of Kents. They called our house the first few times to confirm, but pretty soon I was a regular and they sold them to me no questions asked. :eek:

[carnivorousplant]

@Shoeless

Ha! Yes, when I was about 10 or so (early 70s) my dad started sending me on cigarette runs to the local pharmacy to pick him up a couple of packs of Kents. They called our house the first few times to confirm, but pretty soon I was a regular and they sold them to me no questions asked. :eek:

We used that as a ruse to obtain cigarettes when I was a kid.

[katalina]

I have a pack of Philter cigarettes, 1960; they have a white filter with less than 1" of tobacco; does anyone have info about these cigarettes?

[UncleScroge]

@whole_bean

anyone?

We decided that we would have a soda
My favorite flavor, cherry red

[King_Rat]

Carlton is lowest.

God awful cigs that were popular 1n the 1970s because of super low tar and nicotine content. This was sort of a “low tar wars” period, achieved in part by perforated filters that allowed more in, but many smokers just covered the filters with their mouths, defeating the whole idea.

[TBG]

@UncleScroge

We decided that we would have a soda
My favorite flavor, cherry red

That’s not cherry, that’s blood from the zombie uprising.