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It
is well known, that as consequence of the great peak that acquired the
tobacco, mainly in Cuba, the fraud, the imitations and the unfair competition
arose. To fight against it, the tobacconists decided to aid their products
with some marks or identification pieces that served from guarantee to
the consumers.
First it was the IRON, this mark
was printed by fire on the big wooden drawers where the thousands of cigarettes
dedicated to the export were entered.
Then the PAPER OF COVER came, with this a certain number of cigarettes was surrounded before introducing them in the drawers and in which was usual to appear printed the initials or legends of the iron. Later, when the size of the drawers decreased until only containing a hundred, fifty or twenty-five cigars, the LITHOGRAPHED LABEL OF PAPER (Cigar Label) arose in a single ink that used to take printed the mark, the manufacturer, the address of the factory, the origin of the tobacco (vegas) and some more data. Then the SET OF CIGAR LABELS was born and those small boxes got dressed; these CIGAR LABELS received different names according to the mission that they will complete: "VISTA" (external and interior), "BOFETON" (slap) or "BOCETON" (sketch), "PAPELETA" (ticket), "FILETE" (fillet), "TAPACLAVOS", etc.
Finally, with posteriority a year
1870, the CIGAR BANDS or RINGS appeared, it was the begining of our cigar
band collectors world. From the word vitola (cigar band) was derived the
spanish word vitolfilia that although it is not still picked up in the
Dictionary of the Real Spanish Academy it is know in other dictionaries
like the Dictionary of the Spanish use , María Moliner Dictionary
or the Current Dictionary of the Language (dictionaries VOX), and it has
been poured to other languages with denominations of the same origin (Vitolphilie,
in French, for example).
The designers of these cigar bands,
when selecting the mark titles created for cigars, cigarettes and cut tobacco
packages, they chose with preference the names of those personalities or
remarkable facts that more could flatter the smokers from the countries
to those that the export was dedicated, and they captured them with lithograph
art in the cigar bands and cigar labels, arising this way a varied one
thematic of reasons that satisfied the national pride of the clients in
some way. This polychromatic variety has happened not alone in the cigar
bands but in all type of cigar labels, soon it woke up the interest of
the collectors, smokers or not, and they began to keep and to classify
the beautiful pieces. It is possible to be contemplated this way countless
names of artistic, literary, political and military personalities; landscapes
and places of diverse countries; titles of opera , operettas, plays and
movies; as well as diverse aspects of the social and cultural life of the
different nations, mainly of the Cuban nation.
In relation to the mark it doesn't
fit doubt that it constitutes for the cigar band or cigar label that it
takes it printed kind of to you certify yourself of acknowledgment who
gives faith that this piece was around to cigar or beautifying the box
where this stayed for its transport. Also, mainly in the case of the cigar
labels, next to the mark it dates of enormous interest usually appear so
that the collector dog follow the history of the factory that produced
the cigars, the homes where this was located, the diverse proprietors for
those that the factory happened; these dates that give the collector an
enormous information.
However, nothing else far from
our spirit to reject those pieces that lack mark, because it is very certain
that many of them have banded in some moment to cigar or they have been
inside to box of cigarettes. We are quite sure that certain that in some
European countries factories have existed - and they exist today - that
uses cigar bands without printed mark, pieces of great lithograph quality
that we have in our albums like true jewels that were acquired at modest
prices when being considered like remains in the lithographs. All this
material one, as well as the one extracted had minted of the books of samples
litográficos that the salesmen used to get their orders, they form
today a part of the vitolfilia, always, if these has been made in its moment
to be used in the marketing of the cigars. There are cases in those that
to lacking cigar band of mark there is been considered by the experts as
deluxe piece.
This is to big features the history
of the vitolfilia, where several factors of outstanding importance, the
history, the art and the culture are conjugated.
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