Hi,
My grandfather smoked Craven 'A' and he died in 1938. He left behind him some opened
packets of 20, which my Gran had put into some bags of knitting wool "to keep the moths out".
There they remained until the late 50's, when I found them in my mid teens.
They certainly had real cork round the end, - and I smoked them!. They didn't taste very
good, but I would definitely put that down to old age rather than the tips.
I always preferred plain cigarettes, and I believe that they were safer than filter cigs, as
most of the tars accumulated in the last half inch of the tobacco, not in the filter itself.
I remember a lot of smokers seemed to smoke them right down to the filter.
I gave up completely in 1973 whilst working behind a pub bar, - trust me. the
customers didn't make it easy, -and I've never touched one since.
Kind regards
Dave