Offering ciggies to visitors

[missjo]

Following the good old fashioned custom of hospitality I have bought a nice cigaretteholder and offer all my visitors cigarettes.
I dont smoke myself, but because smoking was so terribly popular back then I feel that a authentic house should have ashtrays and should be welcome to smokers.
So besides tea and biscuits I now also push cigarettes in their faces

 

[dhermann1]

Joeri, you're hardcore. Actually, not everybody smoked back then. General Montgomery was famous, you might say infamous, for not tolerating it. General Eisenhower was a heavy duty 4 pack a day smoker, but Monty enforced his ban in his little headquarters trailer whenever Ike visited.
In those days people had individual ashtrays as part of the place setting at the dinner table, and often smoked as they ate. I remember those days. Eccchhh!
That's one "vintage" tradition that will not be observed in my environment!
However there is a lot of beautiful smoking paraphernalia that can still be displayed.
After the war Ike's doctor told him he had to quit, so he "just gave himself an order" to quit, and did so. He still had a major heart attack 7 years later.

 

[Inky]

I remember my parents always having a pretty ashtray/cigarette holder/lighter set on their coffee table in the 60's and into the early 70's even, though neither one of them smoked cigarettes.

Funny story: an ex-boyfriend of mine, born in 1957, often saw the adults at the cocktail parties his parents gave taking cigs from the table and "eating them." So one day at a party he snuck in, all cute and about 2 years old in his jammies, and took one of the "candies" and actually started to eat it, to his mother's horror!! Fortunately he only got in a bite and didn't suffer anything from it, but his parents promptly gave up offering smokes to their guests.

I still miss my beautiful cigarette case and matching lighter with the enameled peacocks. Heck, I still miss smoking!!

 

[BegintheBeguine]

I've seen it in movies but my elders say real people didn't do that when people happened by. What they did do was, when you came into the living room, ask "What would you like to drink?." I do this.
If you were having a party you would place a bowl of cigarettes on the table, but no one remembers doing that until the fifties or sixties.

 

[Fletch]

joeri, you would probably be given a lecture or a funny look if you did this in the USA, but I like your style (then again, I always have ;-)). I might even have a puff or two if I were your guest - I smoke only when offered one by a lady.

d, you surely recall that nicotine stimulates the appetite. Given some of the atrocities perpetrated on the middleclass dinner table in that era, smoking at meals might not have been an entirely bad thing. More bell pepper Jell-O salad anyone?

 

[LizzieMaine]

We had cigarettes all over the place when I was growing up -- lots of ashtrays, too, mostly the ones that looked like little plaid beanbags, or little tires "compliments of your B. F. Goodrich dealer". Strictly high class.

None of that for me, though. Although I do love the smell of cheap pipe tobacco -- maybe I should offer guests a dip from a can of Half and Half?

 

[dhermann1]

That reminds me. Somewhere among the family stuff is an ashtray brought back (stolen??? That would be just like my grandfather.) from Europe in 1937. Picture of Lafayette in a rearing horse, and the names of famous French resorts written around the edge (Montpellier?). Very classy and elegant. Picture maybe someday. Maybe an "Ashtray" thread over in the Connoisseur Forum?

 

[LuketheLurker]

General Eisenhower was a heavy duty 4 pack a day smoker

That is insane! That is eighty cigarettes a day or were the packs smaller then? I my self am a pack a day smoker and even that is getting to be to much for me. I could never imagine smoking that much… as for offering cigarettes to party guest, I would never do that out right unless they asked for one. I would never suggest or imply this horrible habit to anybody ( yes, I am not happy with my addiction and am on the verge of quitting.). Plus on top of that would it not be cost prohibitive? Cigarettes cost money back then like they do now and I am going to guess that the common person did not have money to give away like that. I would say that it did not happen except for in Hollywood or maybe the Rockefellers house. I don’t know just my two cents.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Cigs were smaller then -- nearly all were the standard 75mm size, and because very few brands had any sort of filter, only about 55mm was actually smoked. So a four pack a day smoker then was smoking the modern equivalent of a bit over two packs of 100s.

Smoking was also a much cheaper habit in those days -- the standard price for common brands was fifteen cents in the US, one shilling in the UK. Servicemen got free or subsidized smokes, so I doubt Ike had much of a problem satisfying his habit...

 

[missjo]

Exactly, i've smoked original prewar ciggies (dont ask) and they were a lot smaller and yes, back then they were dirt cheap.
Besides, offering tea, coffee and biscuits cost money as well but I'd still offer them to my guests just like many hosts would have done back then.

 

[Fletch]

That is insane! That is eighty cigarettes a day or were the packs smaller then?

Nope, 20 class A coughin' nails (altho Lizzie's observation re amount of each cig typically smoked applies).

4- or even 5-pack-a-day smoking was by no means uncommon then. My grandpa Angelo was a chain smoker of the worst kind - "lit one with another." Interestingly enough, he worked for years as a cigar salesman for a small Connecticut maker (CT grew some of the best wrapper tobacco, and still does). But there weren't so many places then that a man could smoke cigars. Cigarettes, OTOH, were ubiquitous.

 

[Warbaby]

A cigarette box is an essential item of vintage decor as well as a mark of a good host. Don't forget to keep a working table lighter nearby, preferably one that matches the box. And be sure to have enough ashtrays that you can replace them once they've been used a couple of times.

 

[Flivver]

Those tire ashtrays Lizzie mentions are really great.

I've never smoked, but I've collected tire ashtrays for years. I was given a new one of the infamous Firestone 500 when I interviewed for a job with Firestone in 1973.

Most of them appear to be about 1/6 scale. The tires are made out of rubber and are true scale models of a real tire. The glass ashtray part fits in the middle and usually has an ad for the tire brand moulded into the glass.

I believe these were first offered in the late teens or early 1920s...based on ones I have found. My favorite is one from Fisk ("Time to ReTire") made around 1925. It's a 600X20 Fisk Baloon... unique in that the ashtray part is moulded to look like the disc wheel of an automobile of that era. I always wanted to collect five of these and use them as the basis for a 1/6 scale model of a mid-1920s sedan.

And, Missjoeri, I applaud you for your attention to period detail. I think a visit to your home would be the closest thing immaginable to a real time machine!

 

[staggerwing]

Growing up, I remember the beautiful glass ashtrays my parents had around the house. They were truely works of art in their own right. They also kept a wooden cigarette box on the coffee table and a large silver table lighter next to it. I'd love to have any of these now, but although my mother is still alive, se gave up smoking years ago, and all of these things have long since disappeared. My parents held frequent cocktail parties, and pretty much everyone smoked.

 

[jamespowers]

Smoking was also a much cheaper habit in those days -- the standard price for common brands was fifteen cents in the US, one shilling in the UK. Servicemen got free or subsidized smokes, so I doubt Ike had much of a problem satisfying his habit...

Interesting how things change.
The government subsidized smoking then and now wants to stamp it out wherever possible.
Doctors then advertised for cigarettes and touted their benefits. Now they tout their dangers and wouldn't even think about advertising for a brand.

 

[Viola]

My grandfather smoked cigars and pipes. White Owls? I think. For cigars.

I am not particularly enamored of even vintage ashtrays, but I love decorative vintage lighters. Not smoking, I have no particular use for them... so I think I'm going to develop one of those scented candle habits. lol

There were some really pretty designs.

I still can't figure out an excuse for a vintage Zippo... without some Luckies or something, it's a rather more sinister hobby.

The old-style cigarette holders were beautiful, too. I used to play with some of my grandmothers' (she quit when I was a tiny baby, having smoked since she was a teen...she died when I was 16, of lung cancer) but she told me they were jewelry boxes. lol

 

[Ethan Bentley]

I had some guests over at the weekend. As I was having a pipe they had a choice between cigarellos or Chesterfields - they chose the latter.

 

[Mid-fogey]

My folks...

...had little lacquered cigarette boxes and silver lighters they brought back from Japan -- just for guests. My mother still has little sterling ashtrays a few inches across with a little divot for a single cigarette that she put by each place setting. None of these items has been used for years.

Interestingly, my dad smoked, but didn't smoke in front of us.