{"product_id":"vintage-winters-special-cigar-band-label-treasures","title":"Vintage 1950s-60s Winter's Havana Specials Cigar Band 🚬 J.C. Winter Co. Red Lion Pennsylvania Tobacciana Cigar Label","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember Winter's Havana Specials Cigars? 🚬 Winter's Havana Specials Cigar Band\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 2 3\/4\" x 3\/4\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WDulzJBoTac\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eI love how sharp this little band is, and it has never been on a cigar: the glue tab at the end, where the roller dabbed on the paste, is still clean.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🏭 Who Made It: J. C. Winter \u0026amp; Co. of Red Lion\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe name on the band belongs to \u003cstrong\u003eJ. C. Winter \u0026amp; Co.\u003c\/strong\u003e of \u003cstrong\u003eRed Lion, Pennsylvania\u003c\/strong\u003e, a little borough in York County that built itself on cigars. J. C. Winter was born in 1888 and started making cigars in Red Lion around 1910 or 1911, and by the end of the First World War his firm was running as many as 32 factories. It incorporated in 1929, with his sister \u003cstrong\u003eAmelia C. Winter\u003c\/strong\u003e as treasurer, and the \u003cem\u003eUnited States Tobacco Journal\u003c\/em\u003e already counted it among the biggest houses in Red Lion back in 1925. In June 1949 \u003cem\u003eEsquire\u003c\/em\u003e ran a mail-order ad offering \"J.C. Winter's Specials\" at $3.00 for a box of 50, listed with its blended Havana domestics.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd here's the twist in that one word on the band. The Federal Trade Commission had already had the firm agree, in 1935, to stop calling its filler \"Havana\". Then came the Cuban embargo, and on August 3, 1964 the FTC issued a consent order naming the Winter company and its brand, \"Winters Havana Special\", and ordering it to stop putting the word Havana on cigars that weren't made entirely of Cuban tobacco. A book two years later still listed \"Winters Havana Specials\" among the names cigar makers had been told to drop. So the brand shows up in print from 1949 right up to that order, and that's where I'd put this band: the 1950s or early '60s, while the word on its face was still allowed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🌴 What \"Havana\" Meant\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe word Havana on a band pointed straight at Cuba, and that is where the cigar band was born. Cigar historians credit Gustave Bock, a Dutch-born cigar maker working in Cuba, with inventing it in the 1830s, when he had paper rings with his signature put on every cigar he shipped to Europe. Within twenty years almost every cigar exported from Havana wore a band.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOf course, there are better stories. Legend has it that Catherine the Great of Russia smoked her cigars wrapped in silk so they would not stain her fingers, and that her court started wrapping theirs to copy her. Another tale says bands were put on the cigars sent to England to keep the gentlemen's white gloves clean. Nobody has ever proved either one, but I like them both.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e📦 Two Billion a Year\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy 1900 Americans were going through something like 2 billion cigar bands a year. They cost about 70 cents a thousand to print, which made them one of the cheapest ways for a cigar maker to build a brand. The printer shipped them precut in bundles of 100, and each one was put on by hand as one of the last steps in making the cigar. At least one maker even used its bands like trading stamps, with a whole catalog of prizes you could get for enough of them. From the 1920s on, cheap four-color printing and the rise of the cigarette cut the number of cigar makers way down, and bands got plainer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKids saved them, scrapbookers pasted them into collages, and collecting them has its own name now, vitolphilia, with its own club, the International Label, Seal and Cigar Band Society. The record belongs to an American collector named Joe Hruby, who made the Guinness Book of World Records with more than 165,000 different bands and had over 221,000 by 1999. And in Britain it was considered bad manners to leave the band on while you smoked, a bit like bragging about the brand.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's a sharp little piece for a tobacciana collection, a frame of cigar bands, or anybody named Winter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/antique-1910s-1930s-very-mild-cigar-band-label-treasures-gifts-home\"\u003eAntique Cigar Band Label 🚬 Very Mild Gold \u0026amp; Brown 1910s - 1930s New Old Stock Tobacco Collector Ephemera\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/antique-1910s-1930s-white-tip-embossed-cigar-band-label-treasures\"\u003eAntique White Tip Extra Mild Cigar Band 🏅 Embossed Paper Label 1910s–1930s Tobacciana Collectible NOS\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-uncle-willie-cigar-band-label-treasures-gifts\"\u003eVintage 1960s Uncle Willie Cigar Band 🚬 T.E. Brooks Red Lion PA Monogram Crest — NOS Tobacco Ring Label Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769704493221,"sku":"VAG-7034816331941","price":7.75,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3357780907_bflq.jpg?v=1785955995","url":"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-winters-special-cigar-band-label-treasures","provider":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","version":"1.0","type":"link"}