• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team
  • HI folks the server that hosts the site completely died including the Hdd's and backups.
    Luckily i create an offsite backup once a week! this has now been restored so we have lost a few days posts.
    im still fixing things at the moment so bear with me and im still working on all images 90% are fine the others im working on now
    we are now using a backup solution

Cigarette smoking

Anyone have a Colibre lighter ? One of those slimline ones. I loved mine. The press mechanism gave a wonderfully subtle ‘click’ when pressed. The height of sophistication! Viv.
 
Bob Davis said:
I had a Ronson, then a Dunhill, but finished up with an electric cigarette lighter (early 1960s), a strange beast you slid at the top a wire ignite, which lit the wick, but for the life of me I can remember very little about it. I think it also had a light in it. I also craved a Zippo, but by the time I could get round to buying one, I had given up smoking. Nowadays there seems to be no elegance or design in lighters because they are all these throw away ones. For a while I had a cigarette case with a built in lighter (I think it was a Ronson), but it was to heavy to carry around and also tended to crush the posher cigarettes. At an antique fair recently I was horrified to see a Ronson Variflame for sale at £60.00. Aaaah!!!! you've all done it again, memories are made of this, do you remember those big Ronson Queen Anne table lighters?
I still have a tin of lighter fuel for emergency paint, grease and other assorted spill cleaning.

Bob
Click to expand...
The electric lighter was made by Magnalux and also had a torch in it. Remember Mosda from Cannings days, they had a barrelling plant I think.
Bob
 
Robert Ensor (bob) said:
John thank you for waking my memory up, I am sure the lighter from your dad is petrol fueled.
This was not the same petrol you purchased at the Esso station, it was more refined as not to smoke when burnt, it came in a small can from the newsagents and was about the size of a 3 in 1 oil can, but could also be purchased in a single refill charge that was a capsule with a teat at the end you cut off.
My pop had a Ronson gas lighter for ever a slick almost aero inspired.
I think the fuel was called Ronsul came with adapters so you could fill whatever make and style of lighter you owned
Most people there days use some kind off disposalable lighter, gone are the times of fags being high times and fashionable.
Click to expand...
Bob, the fuel was butane I believe used in gas lighters. Like in the Bic type lighter, goes in as a liquid and gasifies with hand heat!
 
Smudger said:
As an idiot growing up, i would pin prick a hole the waxy sachet, quirt some in my mouth & blow it out to a naked flame & whoosh. Just one of the many daft things of growing up! Do not try this indoors!! :cold_sweat:
Click to expand...
And then you joined the circus :):):)
 
Bob Davis said:
I had a Ronson, then a Dunhill, but finished up with an electric cigarette lighter (early 1960s), a strange beast you slid at the top a wire ignite, which lit the wick, but for the life of me I can remember very little about it... At an antique fair recently I was horrified to see a Ronson Variflame for sale at £60.00. Aaaah!!!! you've all done it again, memories are made of this, do you remember those big Ronson Queen Anne table lighters?
I still have a tin of lighter fuel for emergency paint, grease and other assorted spill cleaning.

Bob
Click to expand...

Some of those old Ronson lighters are sold for many hundreds of pounds among collectors. I think the most sought after is the table model with the simulated tropical fishes set in the sides. One appeared on Flog It and did very well indeed at auction.
 
We still have lighters (notice no mention of cigarettes etc). They are cheapies used for lighting our fires, grate and occasionally garden; I also use them for candle lighting in church. Still useful but an alternative purpose.
 
Saw a Wedgewood design table top cigarette lighter in a charity shop recently all of £4.50. We have the plastic cheapies at home for lighting candles. My wife who professionally used copious amounts of "Spray Mount" always has a can of lighter fuel to hand, apparently it is a superb solvent. I was never a smoker so had little interest in lighters but I do remember having one as a birthday present from a then young lady. I think her idea was that I would be on hand to light her cigarettes.
 
Last edited:
As a schoolboy smoker, I recall tipped (filter) cigarettes being called “Cork Tip”. It tended to be the Irish lads who would say this. The printed patten on the tip certainly looked to resemble cork, so was there ever a time when the filter it was real cork?
 
Morturn said:
As a schoolboy smoker, I recall tipped (filter) cigarettes being called “Cork Tip”. It tended to be the Irish lads who would say this. The printed patten on the tip certainly looked to resemble cork, so was there ever a time when the filter it was real cork?
Click to expand...
Mort, I don’t think so. Also as a schoolboy smoker I could not smoke the non tipped because I got them too wet!
The early tips were pleated filter paper media and then I think it was Stuyvesant that introduced the us Style tip which was a version of what is used now. As a boy for some reason I would find thos used tip after they had been used to see what Were. There might have been some cork but I never saw it.
 
Richarddye said:
Mort, I don’t think so. Also as a schoolboy smoker I could not smoke the non tipped because I got them too wet!
The early tips were pleated filter paper media and then I think it was Stuyvesant that introduced the us Style tip which was a version of what is used now. As a boy for some reason I would find thos used tip after they had been used to see what Were. There might have been some cork but I never saw it.
Click to expand...
we called that duck arseing the fags.:grinning:

in 1925, Hungarian inventor Boris Aivaz patented the process of making a cigarette filter from crepe paper.[8]

From 1935, a British company began to develop a machine that made cigarettes incorporating the tipped filter. It was considered a specialty item until 1954, when manufacturers introduced the machine more broadly, following a spate of speculative announcements from doctors and researchers concerning a possible link between lung diseases and smoking. Since filtered cigarettes were considered safer, by the 1960s, they dominated the market. Production of filter cigarettes rose from 0.5 percent in 1950 to 87.7 percent by 1975.

Cigarettes filters were originally made of cork and used to prevent tobacco flakes from getting on the smoker's tongue. Many are still patterned to look like cork.[1]
 
Morturn said:
As a schoolboy smoker, I recall tipped (filter) cigarettes being called “Cork Tip”. It tended to be the Irish lads who would say this. The printed patten on the tip certainly looked to resemble cork, so was there ever a time when the filter it was real cork?
Click to expand...
yes.but i smoked domino plain
 
Yes, I remember when you pulled the tip apart, it was made form crêpe paper rolled up.

Once I started work, I did move up a division to Park Drive plain. They used to stick to your lip in the cold weather.
 
Morturn said:
As a schoolboy smoker, I recall tipped (filter) cigarettes being called “Cork Tip”. It tended to be the Irish lads who would say this. The printed patten on the tip certainly looked to resemble cork, so was there ever a time when the filter it was real cork?
Click to expand...
yes it was.
 
Morturn said:
Yes, I remember when you pulled the tip apart, it was made form crêpe paper rolled up.

Once I started work, I did move up a division to Park Drive plain. They used to stick to your lip in the cold weather.
Click to expand...
and me for 50ys i stopped 3 years ago. the skin has grown back now mort on my lip,and the burns bettween my fingers have heal'd lol.......... i try'd tipped i never got on with them
 
https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/smoke-craven-a-107-c-ead4835aa1 !!!

My maternal gran used to smoke these. About three a week. Some of their advertising refers to cork tips, but you would need lungs like a carthorse to take a good drag, I think.

I used to smoke Sullivan Powell Special No. 1 bought from Stannard’s in Darlington St. W’ton, in retaliation against a bloke in the office who smoked Gauloises. I cured myself of the habit in 1991.
 
Last edited:
I only ever smoked one cig. when about 14 and was so sick never smoked another. Mom and dad used to smoke, Dad mainly Park Drive or Woodbines. Don't know why they called them ' Wild' Woodbines but remember going in a shop asking if he had any wild woodbines and when he said yes, told him to tame them, and ran like mad. Mom used to smoke tipped cigs. and also Dumoria. Can't remember names of other brands. Also remember her having a liking for Turkish cigs
 
As I recall the cork tip was just that, not a filter, a thin layer of cork round the tip to stop the paper getting wet and soggy, filters came later.

My dad smoked about forty a day Woodbines when he was working in the factory during the war and doing nights in the Civil Defence but gave up abruptly when he was in his forties and never smoked again.

Mom continued smoking until her death but only about ten a week Park Drive................Dad used to say "Filthy habit.! so she went to the loo for her fag. :)
 
johnny082 said:
I only ever smoked one cig. when about 14 and was so sick never smoked another. Mom and dad used to smoke, Dad mainly Park Drive or Woodbines. Don't know why they called them ' Wild' Woodbines but remember going in a shop asking if he had any wild woodbines and when he said yes, told him to tame them, and ran like mad. Mom used to smoke tipped cigs. and also Dumoria. Can't remember names of other brands. Also remember her having a liking for Turkish cigs
Click to expand...
This is a box of 50 packets of 5 (250 total) Wild Woodbines

P1110046W.jpg
 
Eric Gibson said:
As I recall the cork tip was just that, not a filter, a thin layer of cork round the tip to stop the paper getting wet and soggy, filters came later.

My dad smoked about forty a day Woodbines when he was working in the factory during the war and doing nights in the Civil Defence but gave up abruptly when he was in his forties and never smoked again.

Mom continued smoking until her death but only about ten a week Park Drive................Dad used to say "Filthy habit.! so she went to the loo for her fag. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks Eric, that may explain it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top