| Cigarettes |
To Joey Harrison |
| During a chance visit to a
Florida antique store when I was still in grade school, I noticed a sealed package of
Lucky Strike "greens" on the shelf. It captured my imagination and I bought it.
So began my collection. Though I picked up new brands as they were introduced over the
years following, and purchased antique packs when I could find them, my interest waned as
the years passed. The golden age of pack design had long since disappeared. New brands are
routinely introduced with package designs befitting generic products . And redesign of
existing brands shows the same tendency. To draw an analogy with a similar dismaying trend then prevalent in architecture, handsome facades were being covered over with cheap aluminum exteriors. To this day the trend continues. Any day now I expect R.J. Reynolds' beautiful Camel design to be streamlined into some hideous stylization. (Curiously, public appreciation for the decorative architectural styles that were ingloriously masked behind aluminum facades in the '60s and '70 has seen a rebirth; and the buildings themselves, in more progressive communities, have emerged from hiding.) Pictured below are some plums from my collection. Click to enlarge. |
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| E-mail Joey Harrison |