Snuff article (video) - Thames News 1980s

Here’s a little video I found. It’s really about oral snuff coming to the UK. I remember the hoo-haa well “tobacco teabags” I think think they called them. With a little bit of footage/interview from G Smith’s snuff shop. https://youtu.be/SVVXQntdsdQ

Nice one! But what are these pellets, shown at 0:18-0:29? Some kind of tobacco dissolvables?

1 Like

Very interesting. Thanks

1 Like

Awesome video, thanks. Still getting used to seeing Other people doing snuff :smiley:

1 Like

interesting … 100 tonnes a year in the uk seems like a lot o snuff

1 Like

I have my doubts as to whether or not the chap at the beginning of this film actually consumes snuff.

When his fingers come out of the snuffbox there is no sign of snuff on them.  Then he goes through a very showy routine of shaking excess back into the box, and an exhibition of windmilling the hand around the air, finally dabbing the fingers to the nose, without leaving a trace of snuff on the nostrils, tie or shirt front.

I have read in a book about snuff etiquette that it is bad manners when taking a pinch to shake the excess snuff from your fingers back into the snuffbox or tin.

 Possibly due to hygiene reasons.        

The etiquette book was from the mid 1800s.  

Back to the shop proprietor…Possibly he has developed this technique of sham snuffing for the benefit of impressing potential customers of the genteelness and cleanliness of snuff taking.

I may just be an uncouth lout that takes excessively large pinches and expects to deposit snuff around my nostrils, or on my shirt front now and again.

2 Likes

@ArtChoo do you have any idea how many takes they might had to go through to get that series of shots.

3 Likes

@ArtChoo You are right, a pinch of air that, obviously. After watching that scene a couple more times in fullscreen mode, I’m quite sure of it. His fingers didn’t even touch the snuff.

2 Likes

@bob    Good thinking.  I never thought of that.  

If I worked in a snuff shop, swapping pinches with customers, and sampling the stock all day, I think that my shirt front would look like an explosion in a cocoa factory.

3 Likes

Ha, an apron could be of some help, then.

I find the act of taking snuff quite an intimate, a bit of primordial sort of thing, and even filthy. I wouldn’t be too excited about being interviewed with a pinch in my nose. Or being filmed while taking a pinch.

3 Likes

@volunge a mate of mine needs an apron whilst dining out.  

 I don’t think he owns a tie that hasn’t got mustard, ketchup, gravy or egg stains on.  If you took one of his ties and placed it in a cup of boiling water, you would have an instant cup of soup.   Very handy in a survival situation I suppose.

3 Likes