Antique Embossed Primeros Cigar Label 🚢 ~ Gold Steamship & Nautical Design, 1900s-1920s

What Was Primeros? 🚢 Primeros Embossed Cigar Label, Steamship & Gold, 1900s-1920s

Size: 8 1/2" x 6 1/2" ~ Unused, never on a box.

Absolutely gorgeous labels, the gold and the light highlights of blue. I love when the next thing I pull out of a box is something so beautiful! This is an antique Primeros cigar box label with a big ocean steamship steaming across green and blue water, sailing ships out on the horizon behind her, all set inside an ornate gold scroll frame.

🔍 What's on it

PRIMEROS arches across the top in gold, and right under it sits a gold interlaced monogram, H S B as best I can read it. Around the steamship frame, sprays of white lily-of-the-valley with little blue forget-me-nots and long green leaves, and along the bottom a row of embossed gold coin medallions: a laureled portrait, a bearded gentleman, a Liberty head, a crest and a crown. Primeros is the only word printed on it. The embossing is so deep you can see the whole design pressed right through to the back.

Amazing gold embossed label. Most companies at the time used real gold flakes in the embossing. My pictures seriously don't do it justice. These had to be done on heavy paper stock, which makes them stay vibrant and new looking for a long time.

🌎 What "Primeros" means

Primeros is Spanish for "firsts," as in the first and finest, and it was a favorite brand word thanks to an old cigar-trade tradition: a Spanish name on the box whispered Havana to the buyer, wherever the cigars were actually rolled. It was never one company's name. Different Primeros labels turn up with completely different pictures, including a Spanish-language "Gran Fabrica de Tabacos Primeros" inner label and a German one with a man sitting by the fire with his dog. So it's the steamship and the coins that make this design what it is, not the word.

Cigar labels show you what antique advertising is all about, with the wonderful graphics that lithography and embossing provided that modern printing just can't reproduce. This was mostly a lost art after the 1920s, unfortunately. Most of these artists were very good but desperate for work during that era, got paid very little and received no recognition for their work. Unfortunately, the majority of these artists will remain unknown, but we can keep their art alive forever.

🏡 Display

Imagine hanging this over 100-year-old antique advertising on your wall as home decor in any room! It's a natural for a den, a library, a cigar lounge or a sailor's house, and a great gift for a cigar smoker or anybody who loves old ships. This item has reached full antique status.

Cigar Labels are a reminder of a bygone era but the amazing lithography process is unparalleled even to this day in my opinion. Museums and Art Institutes have galleries dedicated to them and more and more collectors are seeking these out to preserve their history. Once the limited supply for sale is gone and on display with collectors or in galleries then they will be very difficult to acquire.