Unusual Artifacts: A Shark Skin Cigarette Case, 1879

Cigarette Case of Shark Skin, Brass and Watered Purple Silk
France, 1879
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Though tobacco was first introduced to England from the Americas in the Sixteenth Century, cigarettes had first become widely popular in Britain in the 1850s due mainly to their portability and ease of use.  Prior to this tobacco was either chewed, smoked in pipes or mixed with herbs and spices so that it could be inhaled as snuff.  All of these were rather messy prospects, so cigarettes proved most convenient.  Still their cost was prohibitive and they were really only available to those who could afford them.   New smokers found that while cigarettes were a more tidy and convenient way to cram nicotine into their bloodstreams than a wad of tobacco, cigarettes were considerably more delicate than a pouch full of leaves, and so, they sought a convenience which might protect them.  Turning to snuffboxes for inspiration, jewelers devised cigarette cases to secure these new social drugs.  And, like snuffboxes, cigarette cases—truly already something for the moneyed individuals who could afford cigarettes in the first place—soon became an opportunity to display the owners wealth and style., making them the ultimate luxury item. 

This unusual case is made of costly sharkskin which has been artificially colored and lined with silk.  This odd luxury was imported from Paris, France for sale in Howell and James's shop in Regent Street, London, in the 1870s.

In the Nineteenth Century, tobacco was still associated with medical usage and smokers and tobacco chewers believed that the stuff would help with a toothache, chilblains, ulcers and wounds.  Ummmm…no.   Of course, for a woman to use tobacco—except maybe for snuff—was considered in poor taste until the 1930s.