I was given a pack of cigarettes that came from Japan.
It is a small white box, There are two symbols on it. I shall try to describe them.
The first (going left to right).
top part of symbol in a slash going downward from left to right with 4 slightly curved lines coming off the top towards the right. This sits above a rectangle longer horizontal that vertical with one line thru it.
The second:
Is a rectangle longer vertical than horizontal with two lines thru it. At the top two slashes, one going left and one going right.
I know this will be hard for someone to figure out by description but any help will be appreciated.
You’ve got me stumped. Can you tell us anything more about the pack? You’re certain that it’s Japanese (I ask because I don’t think I’ve seen a Japanese brand of cigarettes with a Japanese name.)
Can’t you scan the pack and host the image someplace like ImageShack so people can see for themselves? Do you have access to a scanner, or even a camera?
I’m also stumped. I went down to the convenience store to take a look, and all the cigarette packs there had western names written in roman lettering. If it’s Japanese, it’s one of the more obscure brands.
on two sides holding the top to the bottom are small round red seals, when you lift the top off is foil, peeled back to a very fine white paper, the cigarettes are white with a smaller than normal filter with two small gold bands, the cigarettes have a circular flower on them.
will try to get a picture on my camera and see if I can post it somewhere.
Ok, it’s getting interesting. The online tabacconist I searched didn’t have them, bu I did find a photo of them at this guy’s blog (scroll way down to January 4, 2005). What he says about them is odd, if my very rough reading of it is correct.
According to him, he got the pack from a friend who works with the fiance (now husband) of Princess Sayako (they got married last year and she renounced her royal ties) who may (I’m shaky on this) have got it from one of the policeman who works in the escort guard for the imperial family, and these are the cigarettes that the imperial family smokes. The photo of the cigs themselves show that they do have the Imperial family’s Chrysanthemum crest on them, and no other markings to indicate commercial availability. The guy seems to think they’re quite a score.
If I’m reading it correctly, though, he got them from his cousin who had just begun working at police headquarters. His cousin got them as a gift from the Imperial Guard. I don’t think the bit at the beginning about Princess Nori’s fiance was related.
My soon to be wife got them from work. A professor there recieved them in the mail, from a friend he made while in Japan. I shall have to find out more about his friend.
Those in the blog you have linked are them. For the record, my computer tried to freak out when I went to open that site.
I found out some more information about the cigarettes. There’s a brief history of them on this site (Japanese only, but has pictures of an older version of the cigarettes.)
Apparently, the production of cigarettes to be used as gifts from the Imperial family began in 1934. Over 10 million were produced a year for distribution to front line troops during the war, and that had increased to 28 million by 1945 (I wonder where they were getting the tobacco at that point.) Following the end of the war, they were distributed to award winners, visitors, Imperial Guardsmen, people working on the Imperial Palace grounds such as gardeners, etc. The Imperial family recently decided to stop the practice because of a decline in the number of smokers (not sure if the number has actually declined, or because they want the number to go down.)
(A Google search for “賜り物 たばこ” turned up some other interesting sites, if any of you other Japanese literate Dopers are interested, like this news article.)
According to my dad, that character means as has been said, “bestow”. It implies that something has been given to someone by an emperor or somebody of a higher rank. That would fit with what everyone else has been saying.