Tiffany & Company: Antique Accouterments for the Smoker
Exclusive to pipedia.org
Collecting tobacciana is, today, as popular as ever. Antique and vintage utensils made for smokers are still in demand: cigarette cases, lighters, ashtrays, etc., coveted more for their looks than for their intended purpose. One company that made a slight, but significant, heretofore unacknowledged, contribution to tobacciana was the Tiffany & Company of New York. Two others were the Gorham Manufacturing Company of Providence, Rhode Island, that produced cigar and cigarette cases, gold and silver match safes, and smoking sets, and Cartier of France that produced lighters, match boxes, cigarette cases and cigarette holders. (“Brilliant: Cartier in the 20th Century” was an exhibit at the Denver Art Museum from November 2014 to March 2015; “The Art of Smoking” was one of the six sections. That was a pretty bold, I dare say, gutsy exhibit for a mainstream museum, given the anti-tobacco mood of the country!
Hermès, another Parisian company, also manufactured tobacco accessories, such as lighters, ashtrays, cigarette boxes, matchboxes, and smoking sets. Today, S. T. Dupont of Paris may be the only company with a full line of cigar cases and cutters, ashtrays and, some say, the most expensive lighters in the world. Of course, Dunhill and Peterson had designed and produced an assortment of smoker’s accessories, but you would expect that in a pipe and tobacco company product line.
Tiffany & Co. was founded in 1837 by Charles Lewis Tiffany and John B. Young, in New York City, as a “stationery and fancy goods emporium,” with the help of Charles Tiffany’s father, who financed the store for only $1,000 with profits from a cotton mill. The company began selling jewelry, glassware, and clocks in 1839, and these items comprised most of the firm’s sales four years later. According to Annabelle Pollack (“The Brilliant History of Tiffany and Co Jewelry,” sothebys.com): “Sales from the first day totaled $4.98.” The name was shortened to Tiffany & Company in 1853, when Charles Tiffany took control and established the firm’s emphasis on jewelry. From its humble beginnings on lower Broadway, it eventually became a world arbiter of jewelry, silver, porcelain, and crystal on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. Among its other famed products were china, stationary, watches, fragrances, personal accessories, and even water bottles.
The company supported the military, when needed. During the Civil War, Tiffany supplied the Union Army with sabers, flags, medals and badges, and surgical implements. The company first achieved international recognition at the 1867 Paris Exposition Universelle, receiving a bronze medal for silverware. “Messrs. Tiffany, Reed & Co., gold and silversmiths, of New York, the most esteemed and eminent of the higher class Art-manufacturers of the United States…” (“The Universal Exhibition at Vienna,” The Art-Journal, Volume XII, 1873, 252). “The house of Tiffany & Co, occupies a unique position in its relation to the development of the fine arts and beautiful creations of our nation and century” (George Frederic Heydt, Preface, Charles L. Tiffany and the House of Tiffany & Co, 1893). In 1919, the Navy adopted a new design for the Medal of Honor for heroism, known as the Tiffany Cross, created by Tiffany & Company.
“From the company’s beginning to about the mid-20th century, smoking accessories were prominent in the retail category that Tiffany called ‘fancy goods.’ Cigarette cases for ladies…in gold or gold and platinum are listed for the first time in 1911” (Clare Phillips [ed.], Bejewelled by Tiffany 1837–1987, 2006, 262.)
“Tobacco-Pipes, Cigar and Cigarette Holders Made of Amber, Cigar and Cigarette Cases Made of Leather or Silk, and Humidors and Ash-Trays Made of Glass, Wood, or Base Metals” (“Tiffany & Co.—Trademark Details, 1920” (trademarks.justia.com). A Tiffany ad in Tobacco, August 9, 1928: “For Tobacco Pipes, Cigar and Cigarette Holders Made of Amber, Cigar and Cigarette Cases Made of Leather or Silk, Humidors and Ash Trays Made of Glass, Wood, or Base Metal.” Compare that with a Tiffany ad in the Official Gazette of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Volume 1022, Number 1, September 7, 1982): Class 34—Smoker’s Articles: “Tiffany & Co., For Cigarette Cases, Cigarette Lighters, Pipe Cleaning Tools and Cigar Cutters.”
Writing about Tiffany’s: “The jeweled briar pipe that came into New York a while back has not crowded the cigarette holder off the boards and all sorts of merchandise in the last-named line is in demand, one of the unusually vigorous leaders in fact. The pipe was a little too strong for the women in more ways than one and will need some coaxing, the merchants seem to think. Anything pertaining to tobacco is lacking in novel effects, and strange as it may seem cigarette holders are now looked upon by jewelers as a staple article” (E. M. Ruttenber, “Seen in the Smart Shops,” The Keystone, May, 1921, 100).
“One unusual Tiffany piece from about 1860 is a silver cigar lighter and holder. The top part is an urn-shaped cigar lighter held by two figures of Hercules. Below is a tray to hold cigars. Chains, embossed heads and other decorations make the 10-1/2” high lighter an impressive table ornament. It was a gift to New York banker Charles Christmas from his partner, August Belmont, who became chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 1860. It sold for $13,750 at a Sotheby’s auction” (Terry Kovel, “Something old: Smoking out of style, but not collectibles” Foster’s Daily Democrat, April 23, 2009). It was a crossover collectible that appealed to four different types of collectors: tobacco, political, unusual silver, and work by Tiffany & Co.
To give you a sensing of the current market for Tiffany objets d’art du tabac, a few items currently for sale include the seller’s price.
Pipe tool and tamper, courtesy, invaluable.com
Tamper, courtesy, auction.housingworks.com
Cigar cutter, courtesy, 1stdibs.com
Cigar piercer, courtesy, petersuchyvintageestatejewelers.com. (Price is $2,295.00.)
Cigar cutter, courtesy, rubylane.com
Art Deco silver cigar-smoker’s set, courtesy, nelsonandnelsonantiques.com
Two smoking sets, courtesy, ragoarts.com
Cigar lighter, courtesy, shrubsole.com
Dragonfly and Arrowhead cigar lighter, courtesy, sothebys.com
Pipe rack, courtesy, 1stdibs.com
Matchsafe, courtesy, ebay
Cigarette case, courtesy, sirjacks.com
Cigarette case, courtesy, metmuseum.org
14 kt yellow gold cigarette case, springersjewelers.com. (Price is $15,500!)
14 kt gold, diamond and sapphire cigarette case, courtesy, bidsquare.com
Matchbook cover, courtesy, 1stdibs.com
Matchbox, courtesy, foundwell.com
Lighter, courtesy, 1stdibs.com
Lighter, courtesy, foundwell.com
Bakelite and 14kt yellow gold cigarette holder, courtesy, nadinekrakovcollection.com. (Price is $1,850!)
Pipe tool, courtesy, liveauctioneers.com
Humidor, courtesy, fineart.ha.com
Bronze cigar humidor, courtesy, tremontauctions.com
Smoking stand, courtesy, liveauctioneers.com
Aldecaker (pipesmagazine.com) is very opinionated about Tiffany: “Tiffany & Co. made some God-awful ugly (expletive) in their day, but it was more the ‘gaudy, overdone, looks-at-home in an old lady’s outdated parlor’ kind of ugly.” His comment was in response to someone who posted: “I have a buddy who found a Tiffany pipe.” (It was not a Tiffany.) Everybody has a right to an opinion, but it’s unlikely that aldecaker is aware of these three Tiffany pipes, and I wonder what he might say after seeing them.
In the 300-odd pages of Bejewelled by Tiffany, only one pipe is illustrated (page 198): “74 Pipe. Sterling silver, amber, meerschaum. Date 1881. …Pipe with bowl of meerschaum (a soft white stone usually from Turkey) and an amber mouthpiece. …Pattern number 579, one of a series of seven pipe shapes, this one described as ‘Turk’s Head’. …The silver mounts are decorated with Japanese style and Native American motifs. The stem mount shows a flowering morning glory. The bowl’s mount depicts a dragonfly flitting among a morning glory vine, with an abstract linear design reminiscent of Native American motifs below. …At least three choices of decoration for this shape entered into the ledger books.” The most interesting comment? “The original manufacturing cost was $11.50.”
It is not often when an antique tobacco pipe has a detailed provenance, but the next one does. It was acquired by John F. H. Heide, a Chicago pipe collector who had assembled a collection of 1,344 smoking artifacts between 1900 and 1941 and recorded every acquisition in a typewritten catalog that was discovered after his death in November 1946. H. C. Hale, Jr., “The Heide Collection” (Pipe Lovers, June 1948), described the collection as “One of the greatest private pipe collections ever assembled in this country,” and concluded, “…it is doubtful if one man will ever again possess as many pieces as once made up the collection of J. F. H. Heide.”
This is Heide’s typewritten entry for this pipe. “No. 198. Silver & Ivory Tobacco Pipe. Reputed to have been made, about 1890 by Tiffany, of New York for Richard Everard Webster, first Baron Alverstone, Lord Chief Justice of England (1842–1915) for presentation to Jacob M. Gordin, Russian Jewish Playwright (in Yiddish) in America (1853–1909). Silver bowl & Mouthpiece with Ivory section stem with twist carving. Silver bowl has leaf and pedal [sic] design. Silver cap for bowl attached by silver chain. Purchased From C. M. Heffner, Reading, Pa. 6/14/14.” The bowl is inscribed “REW to JMG.”
Some of Heide’s better pipes were featured on the cover of Hobbies. The Magazine-for-Collectors (October 1946). In that issue, it was announced that George Revilo Carter, a Chicago auctioneer, was offering the collection for sale. Pipe No. 198 was certainly in that sale.
Some 30 years later, on April 4, 1978, New York’s PB Eighty-Four, a division of Sotheby Parke Bernet Inc., conducted “Sale 615 Pipes” that included meerschaums from several unnamed collectors and “A Large and Extensive Selection of African, European and Oriental Pipes from The John F. H. Heide Collection.” Antique pipe collector Martin Friedman of Jacksonville, Florida, purchased Lot 156, “Silver and Ivory Tobacco Pipe” for $90. When Friedman passed away, Guernsey’s Auction, New York, conducted “A Gentleman’s Auction,” January 18–21, 1991, of his collection that included this pipe, described slightly differently: “P202, Silver and Ivory Pipe,” Heide #195 [sic], designed and executed by Tiffany, ordered by Lord Chief Justice of Britain for presentation as a gift to Jacob Gordon, Russian and Jewish playwright, silver band and shank collar, mouthpiece with ivory, stem with twisted carving, silver deckle [sic] and bowl with leaf design, removable wind cap attached with retaining chain, circa 1885. See Rapaport’s Antique Pipes, page 178. 2 ½” H, 8” h. $1,000–1,500.” The realized price was $850 plus buyer’s fee. More than a century later, it reappeared in Paris in 2024, to be sold once again, proving that age-old idiom that, once in a while, what goes around … comes around, even for pipes.
I do not know what the buyer paid, but I’ve known Dominique Delalande (Galerie Delalande Paris) for many years, so I can attest to the fact that nothing he sells is in the $90 range or even in the $900 range!
I had included prices for a few Tiffany items, so I think that readers would want to know the prices for these three pipes. Unfortunately, I am not privy to that information.
According to Bejewelled, Tiffany produced “seven different pipe shapes”—I have illustrated only three—but these three are nothing short of extraordinary; each exhibits the Tiffany touch. They may not have been good smokers, but they certainly were good lookers!