So, it’s an equally crafty collector – and auctioneer – who turns his attention to the accoutrements of smoking as the next Big Thing.

The list of objects on which to blew some cash that won’t go up in smoke is long: there’s match holders and match boxes; ashtrays; tobacco jars and boxes; lighters; cigarette and cigar holders and so on.

Canny Christie’s, the top people’s auctioneer, was quick to respond with a recent sale which offered the private collection of Alfred Dunhill (1872-1959), founder and former chairman of Alfred Dunhill Ltd., a name synonymous with smoking since he opened his first tobacconist’s shop in 1907.

The son of Henry Dunhill, Alfred was apprenticed to his father’s harness-making business in London at the age of 15 and subsequently opened Dunhill’s Motorities,(correct) a shop which specialised in accessories and clothing for motorists.

Perhaps the young entrepreneur saw the writing in the smoke rings. In addition to branching out into accessories for smokers, he began building his own private collection of smoking paraphernalia, which he displayed in a glass-fronted cabinet in the shop.

However, it was pipes that most stoked his interest and in 1924, he published the definitive volume, The Pipe Book, which lists the wealth and scope of pipes from every corner of the world and is still an invaluable reference tool for tobacco historians.

Clay pipes, briars, porcelain pipes, novelty pipes and foreign affairs such as the calabash made popular by Sherlock Holmes remain highly affordable, the cheapest being 19th century clay pipes which it’s still possible to dig up in the garden – and they don’t come cheaper than that!

They range from the long and elegant churchwarden types, to those of particular historical interest decorated with likenesses of the famous. Disraeli, Gladstone and Queen Victoria – specially amusing since she banned smoking within the precincts of Windsor Castle – all have all been immortalised in this way.

At the other extreme in terms of cost are meerschaum pipes, some of the best of which may well break the bank. They are well worth the investment. There is nothing to compare with a well carved and richly stained meerschaum and Mr Dunhill agreed. The pick of his collection were the examples illustrated here.

Meerschaum is a German word which means literally foam of the sea, although in fact, it is a particular type of stone which is creamy white in colour and very soft. For the technical, it’s hydrous silicate of magnesium and is found in bands of strata much like the clay in your garden.

Unlike the clay pipes, though, you won’t find any should you start digging. The main source of the mineral is Turkey.

Key to its success is the ease with which the mineral can be shaped and carved. Note the present tense, the industry still exists in Turkey and new meerschaum pipes can still be purchased in tobacconists’ shops.

However, don’t be afraid of being duped out of your cash by a modern reproduction. Pipes produced between 1820-1900, the period which will most interest collectors, feature carving of the highest quality that will probably never be repeated.

Quick to capitalise on its good fortune, Turkey began exporting the mineral to centres such as Austria, Hungary and in particular Vienna where craftsmen carved a reputation for their skill.

The stone was first cut with hand saws and then shaped and fashioned in the most intricate and delicate and often ribald subjects imaginable. Favourites included ladies of voluptuous Gainsborough proportions, mermaids, actresses, birds and animals, macabre skull and crossbones and skeletons.

Once carved, the pipe was polished with sandpaper, pumice and french chalk, the final shine being made possible following immersion in hot wax.

The usual mouthpiece for a meerschaum was carved from amber, a fossil resin found notably on the Baltic coast of Prussia used mainly to make jewellery.

Like cheap and cheerful clay pipes, however, a drawback of the meerschaum pipe was their extreme fragility. Generally they were fitted in plush lined leather cases to help protect them and this added to their luxury appeal in fashionable Victorian smoking circles.

Connoisseur collectors of today demand total absence of damage and perfect colouring that, like patination on old oak furniture, comes with age.

A meerschaum pipe is creamy white coloured when it leaves its maker. However, chemicals in the stone combine with the wax polish when it is smoked to turn it a rich orange brown colour. The more rich and even the colouring, the more expensive the price.

Picture shows: A fine meerschaum pipe dating from 1880 and modelled with Cupid seducing a female nude. It’s worth £500-800. CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD.2004

Ignite a passion for lighters

Smoking may be a dying habit, but collectors still crave the associated collectables, notably those made by Dunhill, a name synonymous with cigarettes.

Among the most desirable are Dunhill lighters, some of the rarest of which are the “Aquarium” lighters (pictures), so called because the case represents a fish tank with fish apparently swimming amongst aquatic foliage. This one sold for £1,600

London tobacconist Alfred Dunhill is a darling of the smoking collectors’ circuit for another reason: his company made some of the most desirable cigarette lighters that money can buy.

Dunhill started making lighters just before the First World War, in competition, among others, with Colibri, founded by Julius Lowenthal and American Louis V Aronson’s Ronson Company.

By the 1930s, Dunhill’s of St James’s were supplying some of the most luxurious to a distinguished and sophisticated clientele.

During the Depression, cigarettes, like alcohol and cigar and pipe tobacco, came to be regarded as luxury items affordable only to the well-heeled.

Cigarette lighters mirrored this and became ever more the fashion accessory of the rich.

Increasingly, they became larger and more showy, often being retailed as one component in a luxury smoker’s set.

Designs became individual and flashy and the company’s plush catalogues listed expensive pocket and table lighters that were a must-have.

Among the most stylish were grand table lighters in 9 carat gold or silver including one shaped like a small ball and another that included a wristwatch-sized clock with eight-day movement.

In an amusing play on designs, Dunhill also manufactured a silver plate table lighter called the Giant Unique which was identical in shape to a pocket lighter – but about 10 times bigger.

The Second World War had a huge impact on lighter production. Shortage of metals because of the war effort cause lighter production to slump, just at a time when smoking was at an all time high

Utility lighters (stamped “UL”), containing not more than three-quarters of an ounce of brass, retailed at not more than five shillings

As a result, many homemade lighters began to appear in homes, including examples allegedly made in the trenches from scrap bullets, helmet badges, coins and buttons

In fact, it is probably a romantic myth that such “trench” lighters were made by soldiers at the Front.

More likely is that they were made by civilians living near to the war zone, or perhaps an army barracks, who collected the scrap metal and made it into lighters and other memorabilia and then traded them with soldiers in return for rations. Picture shows a trio of stylish vintage Dunhill lighters to grace any collection.

by Christopher Proudlove©

Tzar Michael of Russia was not impressed with the fashion. In 1634, he issued a degree to the effect that anyone caught engaging in the habit of taking snuff would get a strict warning to desist. Anyone caught a second time would have his nose cut off!

The French King Louis XIV was less drastic. When the problem began to get out of hand, he ordered his physician to deliver a public address to members of the Royal Court detailing the evils of the habit. It might have had the desired effect had it not been for the fact that the absent-minded doctor punctuated his lecture … by taking periodic pinches of snuff.

Fact is, so popular did the idea become among the beau monde of the mid 18th century that the practice developed its own ritualistic etiquette running to many stages. It began by removing the snuff box with suitable flourish. After tapping its lid (to ensure none of its contents was lost prior to the next stage) the box was opened and offered first to one’s companions. Then, and only then, and with an elaborate series of gestures and finger movements, the owner of the box would take his pinch.

The last bit was less elegant. Having either stuck thumb and finger tip into each nostril before sniffing, or alternatively inhaling the snuff from the back of one’s hand, etiquette specified éternuez, toussez, crachez – sneeze, cough, spit!

In 1823, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) observed sniffily that taking snuff was “perhaps the final cause of the human nose”. In his day he was probably right.

The practice of inhaling powdered tobacco became common in Europe in the 17th century and universally among both sexes throughout the 18th. It continued in the 19th century and there are, no doubt, still many adherents. The result is a plethora of snuff boxes to suit pockets of all depths available for collectors like us to search out and hoard.

And for snuff takers who like to dispense the largesse following a good meal, there’s the snuff mull, the name given to the large snuff boxes like the ones illustrated here which were intended to sit on a table or sideboard for use by the assembled dinner guests.

Estimates for snuff boxes range from £50-£1,000. At the other extreme, rare porcelain snuff boxes from such factories as Meissen can fetch £150,000-200,000. They come from an elegant age when the skills of some of the finest miniature painters, enamellers, jewellers and gold and silversmiths were bestowed on the objects.

Fashion conscious connoisseurs of the 18th century were more concerned with the harmonious colouring and graceful proportions of their snuff boxes than they were about their suitability for the job. The result was more and more elaborate containers, made often at the expense of serviceability.

Dozens of different blends of snuff were available in the 18th century, some of them variously scented for different times of the year and even the time of day. The rich would have a different container for each. The Prince Regent, for example (whose mother was called Snuffy Charlotte) had 12 different potions for each day.

His friend Lord Patersham boasted a different box for each day of the year and Count von Bruhl, the Prime Minister of Saxony and director of the Meissen factory, had 300 outfits, each with a matching cane and snuff box. Frederick the Great, meanwhile, is supposed to have owned a collection of 1,500.

There were special boxes for different seasons of the year – miniature paintings of snow scenes for winter, flowers for the summer – while a general, musician or huntsman could have his favourite pursuit depicted on his boxes. Others were made to accompany the latest brocade patterns, silk or velvet and others were fitted with watches and even tiny musical movements in the lid.

Despite Louis XIV’s objection to the habit, some of the finest of all snuff boxes originate from France. Interestingly, though, not all were produced in precious metals. A society which places emphasis on craftsmanship is often less concerned with the value of materials used, with the result that some fine French boxes are found in wood, steel, papier-mache (final e acute), horn, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl and even stone.

Louis XV (1723-74) gold boxes have a flamboyant covering of rococo design with elaborate enamelled scrolls and arabesques, while Louis XVI (1774-93) had differing designs in panels independent from each other. Sober simplicity followed the French Revolution, although Napoleon was a snuff taker and examples of boxes exist decorated with his miniature portrait surrounded by diamonds.

Russian snuff boxes are similarly elaborate and fine, mainly because many French craftsmen were encouraged to settle in that country by Catherine the Great, a lavish patron of the arts. The great Russian goldsmith Peter Carl Faberge (final e acute) was descended from a Huguenot family from Picardy whose work remains unsurpassed. Come the Russian Revolution, though, and he fled to Switzerland, where he died in exile.

The finest French and Russian snuff boxes are today found mainly in museums, not provincial auctions. English examples in silver and gold, at least until the end of the reign of George I (1727) were restrained by comparison and decorated only with a coat of arms or monogram. Huguenot families who settled in this country brought with them many ideas of their own and by the time George III was on the throne, snuff boxes were decorated with gold panels, raised carved floral borders, enamels and miniature portraits.

With the 19th century came industrialisation and a decline in quality and taste. Most silver and gold snuff boxes were decorated with engine-turned designs and coarse carving. Examples are not difficult to find today, with prices generally under £500. Particularly worth searching out are those Birmingham silversmith Nathaniel Mills who was surely one of the finest English makers.

My favourites, though, are the cheaper examples, probably homemade or by country craftsmen. They can be found fashioned from conch and cowrie shells, tortoiseshell, and even the shell of a terrapin. They are usually fitted with a silver cover, the hallmarks of which give the date of manufacture. Cheaper still are those made from papier maché, horn and turned wood.

The snuff mull is a particular favourite among collectors of Scottish folk art and some are without comparison. From a Scottish dialect word for mill, where the snuff would have been ground to a powder, mulls came in a variety of shapes, the most common being fashioned from a ram’s horn, usually mounted in silver and often embellished with cairngorms – a semi-precious stone which takes its name from its source.

Others are found in plain silver or even wood, but the grandest snuff mulls – and the choice of a regimental mess – were those somewhat gruesome examples made from en entire ram’s head, sometimes mounted on wheels so that it could be passed around a large dining table with ease.

Something else to seek out are early 18th century snuff graters, now rarities but always carried by early snuff takers in order to turn small sticks of the preparation into powder. The graters were strips of ivory, bone or brass, with a rough surface and sometimes carved with interesting and amusing inscriptions, dates and portraits, although they can be mistaken for nutmeg graters.

Pictures show, top: A William IV fox mask snuff box by Joseph Wilmore, Birmingham 1835. It’s estimated at £1,500-2,000

Below, left to right: A George II Scottish upright snuff box, the base inscribed “John Ferguson Tobacconist Montrose”. It dates from 1750-1760 and is estimated at £300-400

A small collection of snuff mulls including an imposing example made from a ram’s horn. It’s worth £300-400

A late 19th/early 20th century German snuff box the hinged cover modelled with a trumpeting elephant. It dates from about 1900 and is estimated at £150-200

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