[hardy-l] Thomas Hardy Cigars?

[Andrew Hewitt]

A bit more Googling reveals that cigar manufacturers routinely borrowed brand names of unrelated products and the names of famous people with whom they had no connection to promote their wares. Ford (with an illustration of a car), Kodak (with an illustration of a woman taking a photograph), and many other 'household' names were used without licence for brands of cigar up into the 1950s. Characters from Shakespeare (eg Romeo and Juliet, Katharine and Petruchio) were popular. Real people included politicians and sportsmen. In-depth research might throw up other literary figures (Kipling?) who were ripped off in this way; to be effective as a cigar-brand, they would have had to connote 'masculine' values and pleasures. 'Hardy' (robust, long-lasting, strong) might have been a good name for a cigar even without the bonus of association with the famous literary figure. 

Regards
Andrew Hewitt 

--- On Sun, 10/25/09, Jcphardysoc at aol.com <Jcphardysoc at aol.com> wrote:

> From: Jcphardysoc at aol.com <Jcphardysoc at aol.com>
> Subject: Re: [hardy-l] Thomas Hardy Cigars?
> To: hardy-l at coyote.csusm.edu
> Date: Sunday, October 25, 2009, 3:17 PM
> 
> 
>  
>  
> 
> 
> I suspect Chuck may have hit on the answer. The labels
> inside the boxes 
> were probably part of a series for collectors like the much
> commoner cigarette 
> cards.
>  
> So I doubt whether there was an actual Thomas Hardy
> brand of cigars.
>  
> Best wishes
>  
> John Pentney 
> 
> -----Inline Attachment Follows-----
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Hardy-l mailing list
> Hardy-l at coyote.csusm.edu
> http://coyote.csusm.edu/mailman/listinfo/hardy-l
>