@Sammyd13 inspired this post with his latest snuff order of vintage Levi Garrett. Please, valued Snuffhouse members, do some online snooping and share the oldest snuff you can find that is available for purchase. I ask that you include a picture and link if at all possible, if not just tell us the story. Thank you everyone who reads this and participates. Happy hunting!

I’ll get this ball rolling with a literal 1.5 lb ball of tobacco leaf wrapped and tax stamped Levi Garrett snuff supposedly circa 1932. For the low, low price of $725.00. https://www.etsy.com/listing/499663674/antique-15-lb-round-levi-garrett-sons?ref=sold\\_out-3&frs=1

That is truly amazing…

@sammyd13 Agreed! I wanna open it sooo bad.

Exciting! Please share the pictures of the snuff, if you open the ball @rostanf

This vintage carton of pre-WW2 Latvian nasal snuff “BANITS” (“LOCOMOTIVE” brand). Price EUR 10.

https://www.antik-war.lv/viewtopic.php?f=103&t=703622&p=3450829&hilit=šņaucamā#p3450829 (I’m not sure if it’s still on sale there, but that’s how it looked…)

Inscriptions:

NASAL SNUFF

genuine

“BANITS”

25 gr

20 st (santims)

Tob.(acco) fact.(ory)

MERKURS
RIGA

Licensed by Health Department

Nr. 1644

I can’t find any information on Latvian snuff online, but I do know it was produced during the Interwar period. My wife’s late granny wasn’t surprised by my habit and told me nasal snuff was available in Latvia back then.

@volunge that ball 'o snuff isn’t mine, I wish it were, brother. They’re asking way too much for it. Great post, btw. I’m not sure why antique snuff interests me so much.

@rostanf, sorry for misreading. Anyway, a very nice find that snuff ball!

I think this was already posted somewhere. A lot of rumbling, but completely justified - the guy got hold of a 100 year-old tin of Dr. Rumney’s Peppermint snuff with a few pinches inside:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYMAjLUIVDE

That ball of leaves is wild! I would sure like to be able to sample some. When I saw the title of this thread, I thought I had everyone beat with this ceramic bottle of Poschl prickelnde Prisen I found on ebay for about ten bucks - I saw the buy it now auction within about an hour of it being posted, which was damn lucky. The gentleman assured me that he had never pulled the cork once in the more than fifty years that had passed since he bought it in Germany. I am almost done with it, it took me a year and a half, and that was only using it for special occasions.

Well, the photo did not make it, I

@Fantastic_Floyd still a great find! Thanks for sharing.

Four of these are unopened, no idea of date. Great deal for those in the uk. https://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/COLLECTION-OF-6-VINTAGE-WILSONS-SNUFF-TINS-SOME-UNOPENED-ART-DECO-TOBACCIANA/352767507590

I have a 1943 one pound tin of Gallagher’s Irish Toast. It was unopened when I bought it about 5 years ago. Still sealed in a paper wrapper and believe it or not, still good. Not fresh for sure but still nice every once in a while.

I believe it. I’ve recently had some Gallaher’s Condor Brown Twist pipe tobacco which had no business being as good to smoke as it was considering that it had sat all these years in simple silverfoil wrapping.

As for snuff,

I got really lucky and found an unopened glass jar of Smith’s Vanity Fair which was well preserved and still robust in the nose with nice scent, wallflower.

@philofumo, congrats! Back then Vanity Fair was one of the most expensive snuffs in Smith’s range, sold at 8.89 GBP an ounce. Attar of Roses, Heliotrope and Sandalwood were in the same price group.

Great thread on Smith’s with valuable @PhilipS posts: https://snuffhouse.com/discussion/3965/visit-to-g-smith-and-sons

@mrmanos @philofumo awesome scores! @volunge great info!

i bought some swastika stamped old bernards brazil on ebay and it was fillled with cocoa  <:-P

@SunnyDay, was it fresh? Cocoa, I mean Really curious, was it an ersatz-like stuff, originally packed in that period, or someone filled up those old packages nowadays? I saw dedicated video on youtube, but my audible German comprehension is too poor to understand the story.

I bought a 1950s vintage box of Superior snuff. Not going to open it unless I run out. They still sell it at my local grocer.

@SunnyDay That’s horrible! @JosephJames. Great score!

@volunge i think they just filled up those packages maybe because original content was rotten the coccoa seemed fresh but the package smelled of mold

I bought a 1938 paper package of Italian snuff on eBay awhile back. I forgot the name but it was a pale brown almost toast. I should have saved the label but I threw it out. It had an eagle on it if that tells anyone anything. It’s my oldest snuff for sure and isn’t bad for its age. I wish I knew how to re-toast it!

Found this while looking for alternative South African snuff source. Regretably, Taxi and NTSU seller at bidorbuy.co.za doesn’t ship internationally, but I stumbled upon this beautiful vintage blue glass bottle of Beroemde Menthol Snuif - Celebrated Menthol Snuff, made by Otto Landsberg in Cape Town somewhen between 1900-1950 (small amount still in the bottle). The empty bottle on the right without a label is dated ca. 1900 by another vendor.

https://www.bidorbuy.co.za/item/447598009/VINTAGE\\_MEDICINE\\_BOTTLE\\_OTTO\\_LANDSBERG\\_CO\\_PTY\\_LTD\\_MENTHOL\\_SNUFF\\_SMALL\\_AMOUNT\\_STILL\\_IN\\_BOTTLE.html

http://verpakkingsglas.blogspot.com/2017/11/otto-landsberg-co-beroemde-snuif.html

“Otto Landsberg was multi-faceted and gifted man. Born in Germany in 1803, he immigrated with his parents and brothers to South Africa in 1818 and died in the Cape in 1905. In his lifetime of more than a century he was simultaneously artist, art teacher, musician and successful snuff merchant.” https://antiquarianauctions.com/lots/otto-landsberg-1803-1905-19th-century-south-african-artist

@volunge great post!

Snuff advertising and tins

3 tins of Van der Cruyssens Extra Peppermint snuff (Deinze, Belgium). The items are from ca 1920s. Not sure if tins contains any snuff inside.

https://www.doubleducks.nl/shop/antiek-curiosa/reclame-artikelen/45/snuif-tabak-reclame-en-blikjes/

@volunge they look really cool! I love old snuff packaging. Thanks!

About 10 years they ware sold in plastic boxes.

This one is not really old - not older than 30 years, but still well worth your attention as a rare example of Portuguese snuff. Rape Ingles Cephalico (English Cephalic snuff), made in Azores by Fabrica de tabaco Micaelense (Ponta Delgada, Sao Miguel).

Apparently, it was fine dry snuff - as seen in the last photo, uploaded by seller at https://www.todocoleccion.net/coleccionismo-tabaco/paquete-rape-fabrica-tabaco-micaelense-ponta-delgada-sao-miguel-acores-portugal-azores-aspirar~x134320110?fbclid=IwAR36TyzBMTTJe6-23DuvGwqk75KcfXxzfzESDlTxedVmq6Z7l\\_ssK3xl7-4, current gross weight is 52 g (net weight indicated on the package - 50 g), so pretty much no moisture loss.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Some info about genuine English cephalic snuff: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/traded-goods-dictionary/1550-1820/celandine-cephalic-snuff

And here’s one cephalic recipe, super easy to reproduce: “Boeli’s Cephalic Snuff consists of 2 drachms valerian, 2 drachms snuff, 3 drops oil of lavender, 3 drops oil of marjoram; mix. This is said to relieve the eyes as well as the head.” https://chestofbooks.com/reference/Encyclopedia-Of-Practical-Receipts-And-Processes/Patent-and-Proprietary-Medicines-Part-20.html (1 drachm - 3.89 g).

A photo of True Cephalic Snuff bottle (full): http://whitney.med.yale.edu/gsdl/cgi-bin/library?c=medinst&a=d&d=DmedinstbkBBCCAB

Empty bottle of True Cephalic Snuff (c 1850-1855): https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah\\_728170

https://www.antique-bottles.net/threads/true-cephalick-snuff-by-the-kings-patent.384163/page-2 - scroll down to post #16 to see a photo of a huge Cephalic bottle.

@volunge, nice find with that Latvian snuff. I’ve even found a cool poster of another Latvian factory from the 30s.
https://dom.lndb.lv/data/obj/482627.html

I have a one pound tin of Gallagher Irish High Toast that I bought from a guy down under in Australia. It has a date stamp on the underside from 1944. It was unopened and still sealed in a paper bag closed with tape. It’s lost the Toast scent for sure. But it still is good. It’s one that I scent with a little 6photo Sandalwood. Must have travelled from Ireland to Australia during WWll. I know it’s got a good story behind it but I will never know.

I thought my 2016 snuff was obsolete reading your comments it seems all new and fresh

@Snufferdemedicis, here’s a cube of vintage French Snuff!

Would love to know, what it was about - grind, moisture, alkalizers, plain or scented. Do you happen to know the year of discontinuation?

Source: http://www.collections.musee-bretagne.fr/ark:/83011/FLMjo259956

Also: https://www.befr.ebay.be/itm/Cube-tabac-a-priser-poudre-ordinaire-regie-francaise-des-tabacs/133517992138?hash=item1f164ae0ca:g:oyAAAOSw85tfXc6r

Nice colection of vintage American snuff jars: https://www.peachridgeglass.com/2012/07/snuff-jars-from-the-jane-charles-aprill-collection-and-some-more/

I have some 1938 Italian dry toast called Regna something, lost the label. Still quite good. 1943 Gallagher High Dry Toast, unopened 1 pound tin, sent to a soldier in Australia during the war, but he never received it. Pale and dry, with no biscuit scent, but still pretty good.

I have an unopoened can of Gallerhers High Dry Toast I bought fifty years ago.  Will still burn your nose

@elmos I also have a one pound tin of Gallagher’s High Toast, from 1943. It’s still okay snuff but isn’t very toasty.

Noteworthy, this 1 lb ball of snuff discovered by @rostanf is a very rare (if not the very last) example of snuff packaged in cow bladder. Not a parchment wrapper, like was suggested by someone on some other thread previously, but animal bladder.

According to this source, animal gullets were also used for the same purpose.

This not unheard of, though. Some old German books about tobacco processing mention animal bladders as perfect containers for storing snuff.

3VQM5NEMLXYS570×427 34.4 KB

Health warnings became mandatory in the early 1990s (Directive 92 / 41 / EEC) with the words Causes Cancer. These boxes are therefore prior to 1992 and probably date from the 1980s or possibly the 1970s but not as old as the 1960s as, for example, Aniseed was not available in the little boxes during that decade.

That’s a remarkable find. The once common process of using animal bladders as snuff containers is described by Mark Chaytor in ‘The Wilsons of Sharrow’ as being a tedious and dirty job to clean, but cheap enough at 1/2d per dozen. I’ve never seen a bladder of snuff before and it’s possible that this example (complete with label and stamps) is unique.

Here’s another snuffball, a smaller one, spotted on eBay by some Fb NST group member. As can be seen in the third photo, this 1/2 lb ball is dated 1952. (2) Vintage W.E. Garrett & Sons Scotch Snuff SAMPLE Tins 1.5 OZ 1/2 OZ | eBay (bidding has ended; starting bid was $300).

More images of French Poudre Ordinaire, kindly shared by @DeAlpha:

P. S. We also have this little thread: Online Snuff Finds