This is for the few of us that collect vintage snuffs. I bought a tin of Honey Bee while on vacation in NC. The tin is a metal top, bottom and middle. No UPC. Still under the Helme name of course. But here are a few new things to me. This is my first vintage Helme snuff, other than Lorillards Maccoboy and Railroad Mills Maccoboy. This tin has a screw on top, and a gasket under the lid! Those are a few things I have never seen with any of these snuffs. I have a few Conwood snuffs of vintage variety, but no screw tops or gaskets. Anyone else have a vintage Helme with the same thing?
No, but I do have some vintage Toque tins with gaskets under the lid.
Cstokes, the first two snuffs I bought back in the early 90s were from Helme. I still have the tins, but peeled the labels off long ago, so I don’t know for sure what my first two snuffs were. They were all steel, yes, they had screw down caps with gaskets. If by gasket you mean the little piece of waxed cardboard on the inside of the lid. The screw was only about half a turn, not a good thread like on the F&T tins. I hope that will help. Troutstroker is the expert on this subject.
That does help. I was wanting to see if that was something that was done a long time ago, and not across the board. I know that Trout has said that UPC’s started showing up in the late 70’s (I think), so I know that it is from before then.
I had a Superior from the 80s, I can’t remember if it had screw threads. I pitched the tin and kept the label, and am using the snuff. I have a Starr from the 40s, which is in such beautiful shape, I don’t want to open it. It uses a heavier metal than the newer ones. No other vintage Helmes except Maccoboy here either. Sorry I can’t be more help. UPC dating sounds likely, bar codes readers and computers are needed for them. Did you get any information with it? Was there a price tag on it? Sometimes you can sort of place them by the price. Also look to see if it says sample or dealer or a stamp like that. Also is there a tax stamp? Tax stamps were dropped in the 60s I believe.
No tax stamp, no price tag. I’m guessing it’s anywhere from mid to late 60’s and up. It also smells different. I’m not sure if they were using better sweeteners back then or what, but it has the very sweet scent that the Peach & Honey had.
I was just thinking that same thing yesterday as I was comparing the old Peach & Honey and Honey Bee. I wrote reviews for both, but Peach & Honey has no place to go as yet. I used to poo poo people saying they thought the sweeteners in these are artificial. Now I’m not so sure. That old Peach & Honey, really, really, really tasted like honey! Real honey! I did have an old Tops Sweet though, I can’t remember it being sweetend any differently than the new stuff.