Thursday, July 12, 2012

tobacco tin time: plugging my plug pluggers

I've forayed into homemade rivets, attaching tin tobacco tags and the like to tin-can backings cut from a Sunshine Candies container. I'll be selling these goodies at Renegade Handmade (see previous post).

Tin tobacco tags were a promotional tool used circa 1880-1920.
These are all tobacco tags except the feather and the key, which were
promotional pinbacks from Red Feather Services, a forerunner to
the United Way, and a 1947 tourist promotional key that was worn by
teachers and students visiting D.C. and Virginia on spring break.

Sunshine Candies tin cutouts for the backs...or fronts,
however you want to wear them.
According to cigarhistory.info, "A key strategy in the war for market supremacy was the offering of  household items as premiums in exchange for tags.  The man who couldn’t afford to buy his wife a set of silver-plated tableware, might be able to accumulate the 500 tags necessary to get six Rogers knives and forks for free." Like S&H Green Stamps!


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