Antique 1930s Lord Roberts Gold Embossed Cigar Label 🚬 Wood Grain Decor!

Bobs on a Cigar Box 🎖️ An Antique 1930s Lord Roberts Gold-Embossed Cigar Label, Wood Grain

Size: 8 1/2" x 5 1/2"

LORD ROBERTS arches across the top in black block capitals edged in gold, and under it sits a coat of arms built to look as grand as a field marshal: a coronet on top, crossed halberds and chains behind, and a quartered shield with a lion rampant and stars - all embossed and picked out in gold on a printed wood-grain ground, so the whole label looks like a panel of fine wood. The back is blank, with the whole design pressed through in reverse. Every one I have is unused.

🎖️ Who was Lord Roberts?

The leading British general of his day. Frederick Sleigh Roberts was born at Cawnpore, India, on September 30, 1832, and won the Victoria Cross at Khudaganj on January 2, 1858, during the Indian Rebellion. In 1880 he marched about 10,000 men some 300 miles from Kabul to relieve Kandahar and beat Ayub Khan there on September 1 - the march that made him a household name. He was Commander-in-Chief in India from 1885, and when the Boer War went badly in 1899 he was sent to South Africa to take over: his advance relieved Kimberley and took Bloemfontein and Pretoria.

It cost him. His son Freddy was mortally wounded at Colenso on December 15, 1899, trying to save the guns, died two days later, and won the Victoria Cross for it, so father and son both held the VC. Roberts came home to be the last Commander-in-Chief of the Forces, from 1901 until the post was abolished in 1904. The troops and the public called him Bobs - Kipling wrote a poem by that name - and he died the way he'd lived: of pneumonia at St Omer, France, on November 14, 1914, while visiting Indian troops in the first months of the Great War. He lay in state in Westminster Hall and was buried in St Paul's Cathedral.

🛡️ The arms on the label

His real arms were blue with three gold stars, under a band carrying an eastern crown, and the motto Virtute et Valor - by virtue and valor. The label's shield has three stars too, and his crest was a gold lion rampant holding a sword, but the tower, the striped band and the crossed halberds are the label artist's own flourish. That was the game: a cigar named for a national hero, wearing arms grand enough to match, sold to a customer who wanted a little of the glory with his smoke. Who made Lord Roberts cigars isn't printed on the label, and neither is a date. His fame peaked between the Boer War and his death in 1914, but the name outlived him. These are 1930s labels: the cigar label trade dates this crest to about 1930, and the brand was still making Father's Day labels in those years, back when Father's Day was new as a day for gifts.

🎨 The wood grain and the gold

Two tricks on one sheet. The wood grain was printed on to look like fine wood, and then the embossing die came down and raised the lettering and the arms up off the paper so the gold catches the light. It takes careful work from the printer to put both on the same label and keep them crisp.

🎖️ About these

They're 8 1/2 by 5 1/2 inches. Frame one in a shadow box so the glass never flattens the gold, hang it in a study or a den with your military prints, or give it to anybody who knows their Boer War. The supply is finite - nobody's embossing Lord Roberts labels again, and once these last unused ones are gone, they'll be very difficult to acquire.