Signed by the author

Limited run of 3000 books for this first edition.

This is book 2223 out of 3000.

Handbook of Cigar Boxes by Tony Hyman

Book size approximately 12" by 9".

166 pages

From the introduction:

One summer day in the early 1950's, a skinny sandy-haired boy of twelve sat cross-legged on the floor of his room. He had just returned from the local drug store, proud possessor of a dozen empty cigar boxes. While carefully packing them with youthful treasures, he noticed that the pile of boxes included at least six different brands of cigars. Not only that, but boxes of the same brand weren't all the same size and shape. "I wonder," he thought to himself, "how many different cigar boxes there are."

It is now over twenty-five years later, and my pile of boxes has grown considerably. The search to answer that simple adolescent question led me to beg boxes in drug stores, pool halls, private homes, virtually any place I could gain admittance. In later years, that same quest has taken me to cigar factories, cigar box brokers, antique stores and flea markets, and a hefty percentage of the nation's finest libraries on both the East and West Coast. Perhaps most important of all, I've handled some forty to fifty thousand cigar boxes.