There was a time when almost every American household contained a couple of cigar boxes. Mom stored her receipts or sewing supplies in one, Junior kept his marbles or baseball cards in another, and little Sis made hers a container for her paper dolls' clothes, all of them handed down from Dad after his last cigar had been smoked. But apart from these utilitarian uses, cigar boxes have been collected for centuries, appreciated for their magnificent graphic design and the extraordinary quality of their printing.

Although cigar smoking dates to the time of the Aztec civilization, it didn't really take hold in the United States until after the Civil War.

The colorful, detailed images were made by a process called chromolithography, which was developed in 1798 by an Austrian actor and playwright named Alois Senefelder After considerable experimentation, he hit on the idea of making designs with grease-based ink on smooth flat Bavarian limestone. It was a process dependent on the mutual repulsion of grease and water; a drawing on the stone surface could be reproduced by bringing a damp sheet of paper into contact with the freshly inked image.

Senefelder called his process stone or chemical printing, but the French term lithography caught on. About 30 years later, Frenchman Godefroy Engelmann invented the color process called chromolithography, using a separate stone for each color.

After the Civil War, U.S. cigar manufacturers began using the same procedure, taking advantage of the numbers of German immigrants skilled in the labor-intensive process. Most cigar labels required at least eight to 12 separate stones — one lithographer, the influential Louis Prang, used as many as 25. Prang was also the first to add embossing and imitation brush strokes to the picture, as well as a process called crayon lithography, which created a complete range of color tints and hues.

Stone lithography became even more sophisticated with the use of hand stippling, producing a highly accurate rendition of the artist's original image. It was a costly endeavor — each label could involve a dozen skilled specialists, take about a month, and cost around $6,000.

Beginning in 1889, the process of embossing proved an added attraction, making these little works of art even more appealing; by highlighting the raised portions of the label with 24-karat gold leaf or bronze, a particularly lifelike image ensued. After the labels were lithographed, a gold sizing was added to the areas to be gilded and a bronze powder spread over the label that adhered only to the sizing. The sheets were then pressed and polished by rollers before proceeding to a 40-ton press where a die embossed a design a design in the paper, giving it a 3-D quality.

Pre-1920s cigar box labels are the most valuable, because less expensive photomechanical processes were used after the 1920s. Also, more collectible are the inside labels, which are usually more ornate and better designed; outer labels often are compromised by having stamps or seals.

Specialty collections can be formed along several perimeters. It might be a specific brand of cigar or by subject matter. Some of the most popular are sporting themes, show business personalities, or more obscure subjects like pirates or wild animals.

Linda Rosenkrantz has edited Auction magazine and authored 18 books, including "Cool Names for Babies" and "The Baby Name Bible" (St. Martin's Press; www.babynamebible.com). She cannot answer letters personally. To find out more about Linda Rosenkrantz and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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