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Indonesian Collector Oei Turns Tobacco Into Art, Sees Slowdown  

Indonesian art collector Oei Hong Djien is planning his third museum. There isn't room in his existing two galleries and house for more than a fraction of the 1,500 works he acquired over the past three decades.

Oei, 69, was one of the first to systematically buy contemporary Indonesian art, long before prices for the nation's artists began to rise exponentially in 2006. . . .

Oei studied pathological anatomy in the Netherlands before returning to Magelang in 1968 after the death of his father to take over the family tobacco business. On the wall next to the entrance of his modern-art museum is a two-story marble relief by Widayat depicting the cycle of the tobacco plant, from seedlings through to the bales of dried leaves in a warehouse and, below, an art gallery.

Tobacco Warehouse

``We are turning tobacco into art,'' grinned Oei, looking at the mural. It's a tobacco warehouse that Oei plans to convert into the new museum. Work will probably start after the current harvest, he said.

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Drawcard for puff daddies 

In 1900 smoking was seen as a predominantly upper-class pursuit. Edward, Prince of Wales, was among the first public figures to champion the fad - after dinner, of course, in the drawing room.

By this time most tobacco - including more than 85 per cent in England - was sold in tins for pipe smoking. Gentlemen of distinction could order a personal blend to be kept in one's humidor at home.

It wasn't until World War I that packaged cigarettes began to outsell pipe tobacco. . . .

This brief history, courtesy of the Benson and Hedges One Hundred Years booklet, seems almost fanciful today. Yet, against increasing public pressure, there are still those who enjoy a pipe even if they can no longer do it in public.

Prolific puffers have included Albert Einstein . . .

Pipe collectors and smokers can join clubs or online forums such as the Australian Pipe Smoking Forum.

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Arkansas man buys Wagner baseball card for $1.62M  

A 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card was sold for $1.62 million at a memorabilia auction in Chicago, a sports auction company said Saturday.

The record price for a baseball card is $2.8 million - paid in 2007 for a near-mint condition Wagner card released in 1909 by the American Tobacco Company.

John Rogers, 35, of North Little Rock, Ark., said his winning bid for the T206 Wagner card is the realization of a decades-long dream.

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Arkansas man buys Wagner baseball card for $1.62M 

A 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card was sold for $1.62 million at a memorabilia auction in Chicago, a sports auction company said Saturday.

The record price for a baseball card is $2.8 million _ paid in 2007 for a near-mint condition Wagner card released in 1909 by the American Tobacco Company.

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Cartoon brings humour to humidor 

This majolica tobacco humidor features the famous Happy Hooligan, a comic strip character developed by the late cartoonist Fred Opper for the Hearst Newspaper chain. The cartoon first appeared in 1900 and ran until 1932. Despite his frequent bad luck, Happy Hooligan was an eternally optimistic Irish tramp with an enormous smile and a tin can for a hat. Here, he's featured with one of his brothers, the monocled Montmorency, and the two are embarking on a trip to England. The chained bulldog with the pipe on top of the jar is symbolically guarding the valuable tobacco inside. This piece was made in the Austria-Germany region between 1900 and 1920 and has great appeal for four different categories of collectors. Anyone interested in figural humidors, majolica, tobacco items, or cartoon characters would no doubt be charmed by this piece. At auction, it could spark some serious rivalry and I wouldn't be surprised if it brought as much as $550.

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Campaign memorabilia goes from torches to T - shirts - NYTimes.com 

Some trinkets were signs of the times never to be seen again, like the McKinley parasol, the Eisenhower cigarette pack . . .

part of the exhibit ''Campaigning for President: New York and the American Election,'' which is open at the museum through Election Day.

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Malcolm Oastler 

Malcolm Oastler (Born April 24, 1959) is the former technical director of Formula One team BAR, former chief engineer for Jaguar Racing, and designer of many race cars. . . .

During the Jaguar F1 team's tumultuous final season in 2004, Oastler decided to retire from professional motorsport and has since returned to his native Australia to set up several rural ventures.

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Tobacco signage is part of our history: collector 

Spurred on by the raging debate about whether the word Marlboro should be removed from the Peter Brock memorial statue, one reader brought in a column featured in a copy of Australian Muscle Cars that gets to the heart of the matter.

The article in the January/February edition was written by editor Mark Oastler.

He asked why makers of collectable cars have to remove authentic tobacco signage from them before they are sold.

"There are few things more offensive to an enthusiast like myself than seeing such intricately detailed and beautifully-made replicas of famous touring cars that raced prior to 1996, being supplied with half their race liveries missing," he said.

"This goes beyond any arguments about the rights and wrongs of cigarette promotion. The simple fact is that it's defacing and altering our history. And that's just wrong."

Mr Oastler said serious collectors just apply the missing cigarette decals, which are easily available through outside suppliers.

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Writes on Ronge 

Film Virtual History

This is an eccentric site focusing on old movie memorabilia. Few moviegoers today can remember cigarette cards, but up until the ’40s, cigarette manufacturers placed cards of stars inside their cigarette packets. The site also focuses on old cinema programmes, which were phased out in the ’60s. Revisit the bygone era at www.film.virtual-history.com.

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DOUG'S Q-C COLLECTIBLES: Ashtray a work of art 

Dear Norman: What a fantastic piece! Could smoking be made any more glamorous? You're right. This is certainly fancy and unusual.

What your parents were putting their butts in is known as Frankart. This ashtray, as well as lamps, clocks, vases, bookends, candleholders, incense burners and various other items were part of an extensive line of decorative home accessories designed by artist Arthur Von Frankenberg.

Von Frankenberg first began peddling his simple sculpted figurines in the early 1920s in New York City.

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Lunchbox has a tobacco past  

DEAR COLLECTOR: Enclosed is a photo of tobacco tin in very good condition. My 92-year old brother-in-law informed me he had carried his lunch in such a box.

ANSWER: A common practice until the 1920s and perhaps later, recycling tins which once held various products (though tobacco was high on boys' lists) was almost a necessity in an earlier frugal and practical society.

Kimball of Rochester, N.Y., who marketed Pedro Plug, opened shop in the mid-1860s, eventually becoming one of the largest tobacco concerns in the country.

Because your tin looks up to snuff, value could be as high as $100.

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36 Hours in Beijing 

Sunday

10 a.m. 11) CAPITALISM AT WORK

The Panjiayuan “antiquities” market (18 Huaweili; 86-10-6774-1869; www.panjiayuan.com) is a lively weekend meeting of scam artists and tourists. Bronze tripods from the northern plains, teapots made from special sand in Jiangsu province, 1920s cigarette posters from Shanghai — anything remotely of interest to collectors has been carefully manufactured and, to the rare fool, will be sold for real prices. There's authentic stuff, too. On the plaza's edge, Cultural Revolution shops sell the souvenirs of 1966-76, including black and white photos from discarded family albums — detritus of a city in flux.

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Snow white smoking nude sets Latam sculpture record  

A snow white sculpture of a voluptuous nude daintily holding a cigarette fetched $1.6 million at Christie's Latin American art auction on Monday, a record for a sculpture by Colombia's Fernando Botero.

With 86 percent of 76 lots of Latin American art finding buyers, Christie's said the evening auction showed the resurgence of international interest for Latin American art. . . .

The $1.6 million record high for his sculpture was for "Smoking Woman." The woman figure is lying on her stomach, propped up by crossed arms, unabashedly revealing her plump breasts and playfully kicking up a leg

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Mail Pouch tobacco sign hits $19,800 at Showtime sale 

A Mail Pouch brand six-sheet tobacco sign -- a rare, turn-of-the-century full-color lithograph -- sold for $19,800 at a sale held September 28-30 by Showtime Auction Services in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

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Hooked on tobacco products  

Q: Can you tell us anything about this cabinet? . . .