The Five Cent Cigar Co.

Collecting anything can be addictive ...

And I fell for cigar collectibles in a big way about 7 years ago.  As you can see, cigar labels hold a special place.  At the turn of the century the cigar industry was the largest industry in America.   To get people's attention, in the 1880's,  printers started to market colorful labels. Over 10,000 different brands were created between 1880-1930.....

The great aspect of cigar label collecting is that the next label you see...most likely....you have never seen before. Not in a book or in another collection.  I find that more exciting than trying to search for ...the missing stamp or coin to complete a group in a collection.  It's as if the label was printed that morning...just for you!

But boy, what a way to suck down money.....I could never bring myself to tell my wife that I had spent zillions of dollars on labels.   But, like all women...she knew.   She would quietly spend an equal amount at Eddie Bauer's knowing I was snookered......

As I got more into collecting, I wanted to share some of the images with the common folk so, I started of making T-shirts packaged in cigar boxes.  We had quite a ride during the mid '90's.  We sold to Bloomingdale's, Theme parks, JR Cigar, Hundreds of cigar stores, mail order catalogs.....you name it we sold to them. We were named the top 100 new gift items of 1995 and made the cover of several magazines and the best packaging design for the New Hampshire Advertising council!

Jake Rosenfield

Our both at the 1996 Retail Tobacco show: