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Michael Engel - Cigarette pack collector


I have been collecting Cigarette Packs for the last 35 years since I was 10!!! (odd collection for this age), with a friend of mine we collected almost 500 cigarette packs from the years 1986-1992 from Israel, the USA, Italy, Finland, and Romania Those were the countries we and our family visited, after 1992 me and my friend lost connection, till the beginning of 1999, I got a call from him asking me what to do with the collection that was at that time at his position so I told him why don't you bring it to me and if I didn't want it I will get rid of it. My wife now (girlfriend at that time) told me to keep it and maybe you will find more collectors on the web, so I started looking for collectors. and found a small community of collectors that is growing each day, and since then 22 years later I have had 37,000 different packs from more than 170 countries.


חפיסות סיגריות - אוסף מיקי אנגל
חפיסות סיגריות - אוסף מיקי אנגל

In 2006 I started my research on the Israel/British-Palestina cigarette industry, found out an amazing big history regarding Tobacco Industry from 1921 till present, in my research I found out about 35 different manufacturers of tobacco products (mainly cigarettes) from 1921-1948, the tobacco between 1921-1925 was %75 (at the pick in 1925) of All Agricultural crops from all Jewish settlers, in 1948 the Tax “blue” (known for the cigarette stamp) was more than 50% of the young country income of taxes!

Since 1971 there is only 1 company in the Jewish Market “Dubek” and 1 Company for the Arab market in East Jerusalem “Jerusalem Cigarette Company”, then 2 companies try to enter the market but both didn’t survive more than a few months.


I contributed to the writing of the WCCBM World Catalogue of Brands and Manufacturers written by Jean Bricaud (France) & Daniel Sanford (U.K).



I'm also a member of the: CPPCA - Cigarette Pack Collector Club of Argentina - since 2001. CPCC - Cigarette pack Collector Club (UK) - since 2003 CPCA - Cigarette Pack Collector Association - since 1999

Reference

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