Those words from the front page of one of America’s most prestigious financial journals sum up the appeal of cigar labels, which are currently among the hottest items in the burgeoning collectibles market. With inflation outstripping the return on many investments, collectibles have emerged as an investment alternative that is pleasurable as well as profitable. Cigar labels, like stamps, offer a unique blend of art and Americana and can be enjoyed as both decorative items and blue chip investments.

For years, gold, silver, gemstones, artifacts, coins, and stamps have been sought as investment alternatives, offering security against inflation, low interest rates, or even worse, bank failures. Of all these investment options, one of the better returns in the past, dollar for dollar, have been rare arts, both paintings and statuary. Unfortunately for the majority of us, owning an original Rembrandt or Van Gogh is not an option. Masterpieces are all but exhausted and those that do become available are usually cost prohibitive for the average person to purchase.

Two of the more readily available collectables are coins and stamps. To this day, all coins ever minted in the United States have been catalogued to the exact number and minting location. It is therefore rather simple to establish source and value for American coinage with the ultimate price being determined by rarity, condition, and market fluctuation. Stamps on the other hand are a little more difficult to appraise exactly because it is more difficult to determine the exact quantity of a specific stamp in circulation. That said, legitimate dealers can reach fairly accurate values based on past transactions. To put cigar labels and their scarcity in perspective, consider that you could fill a train with the amount of gold and diamonds in circulation; you could fill several trains with the amount of rare coins or stamps; and entire stadiums with the number of baseball cards.

The history of stone litho cigar labels dates back to the period between 1870 and 1930 when cigar smoking in the United States was at its zenith. Labels reflected the enthusiasm of what was considered a flamboyant era. More than 15,000 cigar manufacturers were marketing over 350,000 cigar brands, each with its own distinctive label. Nearly every American city and town had their own cigar factories and the competition for customers was fierce. The cigar companies would hire the most talented artists they could find and commission them to create elaborate works of art that would fit on the label, each one with the intention of drawing the consumer’s eye away from the competition.

Birth of an Art Form
Stone lithography itself was invented by Aloys Senefelder, an Austrian actor and playwright, out of desperate necessity in 1798. Burdened with debt and unable to print his newest play, Senefelder was experimenting with a less expensive method than the costly hand-engraved copper plates in use at the time. After much trial and error, Senefelder achieved better results using a grease-based ink on Bavarian limestone. Senefelder called his new process chemical or stone printing but in time the French name “lithography” became widely adopted. He secured patent rights throughout Europe, and later exploited the process as a process a medium for art. Lithography was further developed into a full-color process in 1836 by Frenchman Godefroi Engelmann and his son Jean, using multiple plates.

Cigar makers rapidly adopted the use of stone lithography to realize opulent artistic visions. During this time, America consisted of more immigrants than American-born citizens. Fewer than half of the 60 million people living here at the time could read, and of those who could read at all, many were reading in languages other than English. For that reason, advertising slogans like the ones we use today were virtually useless. This was a definite case of cigar makers needing consumers to judge a book by its cover, or in this case, a cigar by its artwork. The more attractive the artwork, the better the chance to sell one’s cigars.

The process itself was extremely expensive, labor-intensive, and time-consuming. Artists created their works under harsh conditions — with no electricity and poor lighting — spending months carving and then printing multiple times for each color. Each label might involve a dozen highly skilled specialists, take a month to create, and cost thousands of dollars to produce.

Typically, eight to 10 stone carvings — but as many as 22 for very complex designs —were utilized to create a label, with each stone corresponding to a single color ink. Stones could weigh between 300 to 600 pounds, requiring intense labor just to move them around. Bavarian limestone — the most commonly used type — was transported down steep, muddy, slippery mountains from the only quarry capable of producing the needed rock in the high mountains of Bavaria, then transported halfway across the world to the United States.

Inks were derived from plants, roots, shells, and many mineral materials to produce the awesome colors to fulfill the artist’s vision, but the knowledge of the exact processes used to mix them so perfectly to create such intricate color combinations has unfortunately been lost.

The process continued to mature, and in the mid-1890s, lithographers began using heavier presses and precision-machined dies to emboss many of their labels. The embossing process highlighted the raised portions of the label with 24 karat gold leaf or bronze, using dust hand sprinkled onto one of the stone etchings and then embossed onto the label. Embossing gave the labels added dimension and realism. In fact, gold embossed coinage imagery found on some stone chromo litho cigar art labels far exceed the detail of any gold, copper, or silver coin ever made.

Embossing also had an unintended effect for the longevity of surviving labels. Most of the early labels were printed on inexpensive, short-fiber paper often containing wood cellulose which discolored and became brittle over time. Embossed labels, on the other hand, required the use of high quality long-fiber rag-stock paper so that the fibers could stretch and not break under the immense pressure of presses.

The back side of cigar lithos are typically yellow and dull, but if you turn it over to the image side you will notice that it remains an eye-popping white—substantially better than today’s best white. While we do not know how exactly this was achieved, we do know that it involved using some kind of clay-glazed linen paper. Bendable and flexible without chipping or cracking, this paper is not found in use anywhere else from any other time period. Labels printed over 100 years ago still remain clean and bright with no signs of aging. Such art, unlike a typical Norman Rockwell print, is a hand made original, and therefore, very collectible.

By the 1920s, the golden age of cigar label art was quickly coming to an end. Photomechanical lithography had begun to take over the market, and new inks, cheaper paper, and high-speed presses replaced the time-consuming and laborious work of the past century. At the same time, much of the craftsmanship was also lost. With modern printing techniques, only four inks were needed. As cigar makers transitioned to newer labels, many of the leftover box labels that had been so painstakingly created were destroyed, thus putting a definitive end to what was once one of the largest industries in America. By 1930, these chromolithographed and embossed labels were essentially a thing of the past.

Rediscovering the Lost Art
Fortunately for the industrious collector, not all of the cigar labels have been destroyed. But how were surviving lithos rediscovered?

The largest and most prolific lithographers and cigar factories were located in populated areas like New York and other larger cities. When these businesses left and were replaced by other uses, expensive space was completely cleared out. But in old cigar factories located in more rural areas, discoveries of unused labels — those printed but not yet glued to finished cigar boxes — were more common. A particularly fertile area for antique paper discoveries was in Eastern Pennsylvania. In the 1970s, a young man by the name of Mark Trout became aware of bundles of colorful, unused old cigar labels being discarded or sold from corners or attics of old factories. Astute enough to recognize their beauty, he literally hauled truckloads of them across the country to his home in California. Thus began the label gold rush, which has been growing steadily ever since. While the days of windfall discoveries like these are long gone, the cigar label has remains a fashionable pursuit, sought by fine art collectors nationwide. Like any other collectable, the more rare the label is, the more expensive it will be to procure. Interestingly, like the gold rush of the 1800s, California has become a hotbed for those interested in collecting cigar art, with nearly 80% of all known collectable labels residing in its borders.

Beware: collecting cigar labels is an extremely contagious pastime, apt to last a lifetime, as noted by by Gerald Petrone, a San Diego physician, avid collector of cigar advertising and labels, and author of “Cigar Box Labels — Portraits of Life, Mirrors of History.” Petrone researched labels back to the earliest examples from 1957, when they were in their crudest form and were of poor quality. The book tours many private, priceless collections, and lends wonderful insight into the genre.

Some people collect cigar art to be shown off in their homes as works of art, framed and mounted on walls for all to see. Others collect labels by theme, and there are many to choose from, including wildlife, plants, historical events, military, sports, buildings, stage actors, fictional characters and — of course — young ladies. “To entice their mostly male customers, manufacturers used sexy celebrities of the day like Julia Marlowe and Fanny Davenport, both popular stage actresses,” notes Emanuel Leto, director of community outreach for the Ybor City Museum Society. “Women of cigar labels ranged from innocent or demure to sultry or pornographic. Half-dressed women were common, and a few early labels featured completely nude women.”

There is no wrong answer in how to collect cigar art, so long as you do so with the passion and precision that the endeavor entails. The important thing to remember if you are collecting cigar art as an investment rather than a hobby, is that the art is only as valuable as the amount of care you put into maintaining it. Just like baseball cards, stamps, coins, and traditional works of art, you could have the most rare, most extravagant work ever created; if you do not maintain it, then it is worthless for resale. There are websites that can direct you in how to best maintain your collection, but typically acid-free holders mounted in a large binder from your local office supply shop should suffice.