Tin Tobacco Tags of the late 19th century. Today, everything is branded, even individual pieces of fruit! These represent early branding of tobacco. With each no larger than a coin, and some smaller than a dime, one has to lean in and squint to appreciate them. I scanned some for you. I don't collect them, but I found a huge pile of them. An instant collection! The tiny tags were stuck on plugs of chewing tobacco and also on bags of smoking tobacco. Some were redeemable for gifts…but you had to just about acquire cancer to get enough to trade in. The ones shown are 1880 to 1920 for the most part. Paper printed labels took over then. Even a hundred years later, they turn up often. There seems to be some valuable ones, but I'm not going to take the time to sort them out.
Tin Tobacco Tags late 19th Century collection Jim Linderman
