Old Pipe and Tobacco Catalogs

Old pipe and tobacco catalogs rank among the most detailed printed documents to survive from the tobacco trade. Because a catalog's pages record, one by one, which model was sold under which name, in which material, and with which shape number, no other type of document offers a comparable inventory.

The trade catalog emerged in the 18th century and became, in the 19th, the standard way for a manufacturer or wholesaler to reach a distant buyer. This is exactly where its value lies for the collector and researcher: a catalog shows not what an era sold, but what it used.

The American Side: Demuth and Zorn

The earliest known complete product-line catalog comes from Wm. Demuth & Company, founded by William C. Demuth in New York in 1862. The firm's Illustrated Catalogue of Smokers' Articles and Show Figures, dated to around 1875, brings together applewood, briar, clay, and genuine or imitation meerschaum pipes, amber mouthpieces, tobacco pouches, snuff boxes, and the carved figures placed outside tobacconists' shops all in a single listing. Demuth became a subsidiary of S. M. Frank & Company in 1937 and was liquidated in 1972.

The second example comes from Philadelphia: the fifth edition catalog of George Zorn & Co., an importer and manufacturer founded in 1875, is dated to around 1892. Referred to in sources as running 160 pages, the catalog is illustrated throughout in black and white and lists nearly the full range of the era's bowl materials. What sets it apart are the explanatory sections woven in among the sales listings: pages explaining what meerschaum, amber, and French briar actually are give the catalog the character of a handbook as well as a sales tool. One copy is held in the Smithsonian collection; S. Paul Jung Jr. published a facsimile edition in 1989.