Posted 14 years ago
Hoopkrin
(19 items)
In the early days of college football, the dominant teams came from the Ivy League and the "Big Three," Yale, Harvard and Princeton, were always among the top teams in the country. This colorful embossed cigar box label depicts players from that bygone era.
This is a great colorful image. It will obviously hold great appeal to football fans, and Y,H, or P alumni.
I have been a cigar box label collector for years. I love the colorful stone lithography, and the incredible artwork, and the seemingly endless themes.
Back in 1933 FORTUNE magazine did an article about cigar box labels, and actually did a color embossed insert of several labels -- including YHP -- which is where yours comes from (see the uneven trimming). So while it is printed from an original litho stone, technically it is not a true cigar box label. Cigar box label collectors (the late Mark Trout was one of the first to source them from warehouses and barns back in the 60s) have tracked the known labels, and have written many reference books and websites.
See this recent ebay sale of the magazine issue, to see the pages with the cigar label images. -- http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260632936249
Collectors Weekly doesn't have a Cigar Box LABEL page -- yet -- hint hint -- but you can watch the Cigar Box page to see some other fantastic labels -- http://www.collectorsweekly.com/tobacciana/cigar-boxes