Home of The UK Tobacco Brands Library

The Library of UK Cigarette & Tobacco Brands currently lists over 8000 different Cigarette and Tobacco brands that were on sale in packets, boxes or tins in the UK between the years 1870 to 1970. 

The Library is in two parts, the Tobacco Brands Index and the Cigarette Brands Index both of which contain an A-Z list of manufacturers and distributors, the brands that they sold and the years during which the brands were known to have been on sale in the UK.

Each section also contains a brief description about the company and a pictorial reference such as an old advert, photo or image of a rare packet or tin.

The indexes have been compiled from old manufacturers price lists, smokers catalogues, newspaper and magazine archives and is constantly being expanded as new information comes to light.

Help build the Library

Any information that you can add to the this free resource will be to the benefit of the entire collecting community, so if you have any packet or tin that is not listed in the index or if you have any old manufacturers price lists or catalogues, or advertising material that may help confirm on sale dates, please help by sending an image of the packet or tin or copies of price lists or advertising material. Contribute to Library

Other resources

There are various other lists to assist collectors in identifying and dating packets and tins such as the Cigarette Prices Timeline, Companies Timeline and Evolution of the Tobacco  Tin.

There are also a number of useful articles including The History of Tobacco, Collecting Old Tobacco Tins, Rise of the Cigarette and About Tobacciana. Again, if you would like to contribute an article, please get in touch.