Antique 1920s-30s Flor De Manuel Babies 👶 Gold Embossed Cigar Label

Who Made Flor de Manuel Cigars? 👶 Antique 1920s-30s Flor de Manuel Babies Gold Embossed Cigar Box Label

Size: 8 1/2" x 6 1/2" ~ Little to no wear.

Behold this amazing Gold embossed label. A gentleman in a high white collar and dark coat looks out from an oval portrait, ringed with embossed gold coins and bright flowers, with FLOR DE MANUEL arched over him in red and gold, a SUPERIORES ribbon under his portrait and BABIES in big embossed red letters below, all on a deep blue field. A matching MANUEL BABIES strip runs along the bottom, and a blank gold beaded oval sits up in the corner where a factory number could be printed. Most companies at the time used real gold flakes in the embossing.

🏷️ What's Printed on It

• FLOR DE MANUEL
• SUPERIORES
• BABIES
• MANUEL BABIES, on the bottom strip
• REG. IN U.S. PAT. OFF., in tiny type
• CONSOLIDATED LITHOGRAPHING CORPORATION BROOKLYN N.Y., the printer's line

The back is blank, with the embossing pressed right through.

📻 A Brand on the Radio

This was a trendy brand and was one of the first to use the radio as an advertising medium, marking a significant shift in marketing history. By 1931 radio was a hot fad, and Flor de Manuel was right there with Phillies, White Owl, Robt. Burns, Cremo, La Palina and Dutch Masters sponsoring radio programs, mostly music and comedy-variety shows. Other Flor de Manuel labels carry the name of J.C. Winter & Co. of Red Lion, Pennsylvania, which by the end of the First World War ran as many as 32 cigar factories, large and small.

🖨️ Consolidated Lithographing

The printer's line belongs to the Consolidated Lithographing Corporation of Brooklyn, which took over the American Lithographic Company's cigar label business in 1930 and kept printing cigar labels right on into the 1980s.

🖼️ Hang It Up

It is big and bright enough to anchor a wall in a den, an office or a bar, and the deep blue looks terrific in a plain black frame. Labels like this were printed by stone lithography and pressed with gold, and nothing printed today quite matches them. The men who drew them were skilled, badly paid and almost never credited, so their names are mostly gone - the labels are what is left of their work.