This image comes from the April 14, 1934 Saturday Evening Post which continues to be a veritable gold mine of kitsch. I could do a years worth of postings just from this issue...but I promise I won't.
Spud cigarettes. Catchy name, no? Who wouldn't want to suck on a Spud? Inhale a Spud? Would the Marlboro men have sucked on Spuds? I don't think so. But apparently some people did.
Click on image to see it larger.
Oh the romance of a Spud on a date. We look at this now and think "How stupid do they think we are?", but give it 50 years and we'll be looking at today's advertising (well, I won't because I'll be long gone) and thinking "How stupid do they think we are?"
Spuds were popular in the 193os and '40s. They no longer exist. What does exist is the idea of menthol in cigarettes. Ever wonder where they came from? Spud. Spud McKenzie. Oh wait, no...that was a dog that sold beer. No, this was Lloyd "Spud" Hughes of Mingo Junction, Ohio. I kid you not.
The first person to take advantage of the properties of menthol and formulate a mentholated cigarette was Lloyd "Spud" Hughes of Mingo Junction, Ohio back in the 1920's. Aa a young man, Hughes was afflicted with asthma and his mother had given him menthol crystals so that he might inhale the vapors. As the story goes, Spud preferred smoking cigarettes, he hid his cigarette supply overnight in a baking powder tin along with the menthol. In the morning he discovered that the cigarettes had taken up the menthol flavor. At first he just smoked the cigarettes himself. Later, he offered them to the railroad and mill workers who frequented his father's restaurant. Finally, Spud filed the patent on the process on July 31, 1924 (patent granted September 25, 1925)and began to contract the maufacturer of Spud mentholated cigarettes through Bloch Brothers Tobacco Company. He set out in his car and canvassed the Ohio Valley region selling them. In 1926, Hughes contacted the Axton Fisher Tobacco Company of Louisville, Kentucky to manufacture more of Spuds. Woodford Axton immediately recognized the potential for this unique cigarette and offered Spud Hughes \\$90,000. The deal was accepted and Mr. Hughes went on a two year spending spree. Axton Fisher hired a New York advertising firm to promote Spud's nationally and sold stock in the company for the first time to finance expansion. These decisions led to the establishment of Spud as the 5th largest selling cigarette in the U.S. by 1932.
In 1944 Philip Morris bought Axton Fisher Tobacco Company and the manufacture of Spud cigarettes fo domestic sales was discontinued in 1963 (Philip Morris Document 2012518595 - March 28, 1963). An article in the Lexington Herald-Leader (February 25, 1999) indicated that Philip Morris began phasing out production at its Louisville plant (the old Axton-Fisher facility) before July, laying off about 1400 union and non-union workers by December 2000. (SOURCE: Good Health)
You can go to the source link above to see a photo of Spud, the cigarette inventor, not Spud McKenzie who shares one similarity...also dead.
UPDATE: Reader CWLSAX has provided the following about Spuds. Thank you!
UPDATE: Reader CWLSAX has provided the following about Spuds. Thank you!
Spud had great ads in the 30s - not quite the everyman and woman touch but more of a soft sell. Even a little sophisticated. That changed once they started losing smokers to Kool.
About 1957 PM reformulated Spud to a "touch of menthol" filter cig which didn't do well. By '59 they brought out a full-menthol brand, Alpine, and Spud was on the way out.
Spud Hughes, btw, tried marketing another menthol smoke he called Julep after the buyout. It disappeared and so did he - an internal company memo from Lorillard says he was "never heard from again"...
Juleps were still advertised in the WW2 years, made by Penn Tobacco Co., Wilkes-Barre. Spud Hughes died in 1967 in Pennsylvania. So he just may have gone to work for Penn Tobacco at some point._______________________
I just wanted to give an update link to a post I did last year called "When PIGS WERE BRAVE." The post was about some children's greeting cards from the 1950s published by Fravessi Lamont Inc. The grandson of the Lamont part of the company emailed me today with some nice information. Thank you John.
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Spud had great ads in the 30s - not quite the everyman and woman touch but more of a soft sell. Even a little sophisticated. That changed once they started losing smokers to Kool.
ReplyDeleteAbout 1957 PM reformulated Spud to a "touch of menthol" filter cig which didn't do well. By '59 they brought out a full-menthol brand, Alpine, and Spud was on the way out.
Spud Hughes, btw, tried marketing another menthol smoke he called Julep after the buyout. It disappeared and so did he - an internal company memo from Lorillard says he was "never heard from again"...
Thanks for the information. I'll include it in the post. Always fun when someone comes along and finds an old post with new information.
DeleteGreat, glad to hear it.
ReplyDeleteA little more about Juleps - they were still advertised in the WW2 years, made by Penn Tobacco Co., Wilkes-Barre. Spud Hughes died in 1967 in Pennsylvania. So he just may have gone to work for Penn Tobacco at some point.