When, after the Crimean War (1853 - 1856), cigarette smoking became more and more fashionable (previously tobacco was only chewed, snuffed and smoked in pipes or cigars), the silver manufacturers began to switch their production from snuff boxes to cigarette cases. They had to insert into their new designs a space for the safety match, the invention patented in 1852 by Swedish engineer John Edvard Lundström and highly appreciated by its users. (see article:"Tinder cord and match/striker compartment in Russian cigarette cases": Members' window #68).

After the matches became inexpensive and trustworthy the cigarette cases got a new form. Sometimes the cases used the "old" forms of the snuffboxes, only larger. We see the already known materials: gold, iron gouilloché, silver, silver niello, silver enamel (cloisonné, champlevé, plique à jour), nephrite, ivory, iron, silver laque, papier maché and Karelian birch.


Here are the usual measures and forms:

The Russian cigarette cases are much larger than the European cases because the Russian cigarettes (papirossi) where much larger than European cigarettes.

Tobacco            hollow carton mouth piece

Nephrite/gold: Wigström/Fabergé	Nephrite/gold: Wigström/Fabergé	Red-gold: Afanassiev/Fabergé

Perchin/Fabergé	Yellow-gold, green-gold: Bragin	Yellow-gold: Wladimirov

I. Ovtschinnikov	I. Ovtschinnikov	M. Ovtschinnikov

unknown	unknown	Morosov

Khlebnikov	Khlebnikov	A.O.A.M.3.

Khlebnikov	Albrecht	Aleksejev	Klingert

Nikitin	Nikitin	Rukawischnikov	Sazikov

Sazikov	Sazikov	Postnikov	Muromkin

Kordes	Kasakov	Kasakov	Iwanov

Lorie	Samoschin	Schein	Tscheriatov

Gubkin	Wede	Zwerev

Silvennoinen	Werlin	Werlin

Vishnijakov	Vishnijakov	Vishnijakov	Vishnijakov

Lukutin	Karelian birch	Karelian birch

Karelian birch	Prisoner work from GULAG	Steel, Motto: Strengthen the Armed Forces of the USSR 1943 WW II

This was a little excerpt from my collection – the adaptive development of the Russian cigarette case from Fabergé to GULAG in the last century…..