207.    $1500

W E Haines & Sons Cigar Store Advertiser “Fragancia”, ca. 1925.  This advertiser is 45 inches tall and 30.5 inches wide with a 16-inch cigar on top, painted convincingly.  This advertiser is built on a Gilbert “Washington” calendar clock and includes a partial label on the back.  The unsigned 8-day time and calendar movement is running.  The labels retain good color and definition, while the Napoleon label on the inside, promoting a smokeless tobacco (snuff), is a bit worn. There are additional labels on both sides of the clock (this guy stuck a label everywhere that was available).  Both glasses are old but may not be original; there is a good dial and three old hands, and a Haines label on the back, but the destination of the clock cannot be discerned.  I like the proportions of this clock.  $1500-$2500.

W E Haines Cigar Advertiser clocks

W.E. Haines was a tobacco distributor working out of Abbottstown PA in the early 1900’s.  To promote his cigar sales, he created and distributed clocks that he had modified with cigar advertising.  It is not clear if he sold these clocks or gave them to his best customers as promotional items; perhaps both.  All have a label on the back with his business name and the destination of the clock.  He used a variety of contemporary clocks, apparently whatever he could obtain and modify.  Virtually all were hanging clocks, some quite tall.  Most were distributed to the Midwest, especially Kansas, but they were also sent to stores in Chicago and New York.  These clocks were accumulated, presumably in the early 1960’s as the stores closed or were remodeled, by a contractor for a tobacco company and stored on his farm.  His family with Greg Arey had the clocks restored after his death in 2005; some of you may know Greg from his association with the Kansas City chapter of NAWCC, where he has shown some of these clocks in the past.  Greg recently released 43 of these rare, one-of-a-kind clocks for sale through Showtime Auctions.  You can see all the clocks that were sold at Showtime here.  All clocks have been cleaned and restored as necessary; all are running.  They can be disassembled for ease of shipping or transport.  We hope you like them!