Player's Airman - Survey Of A Long Gone Tobacco And Etc. - (very image heavy)

This will be a brief look at an old British baccy made by John Player's & Sons that's been off the market for 45 years.
Because it has been out of production for so long, there probably ain't many people around who ever actually smoked it, or even remembers it, and there's scant to none hard info online anywhere about it - I did find a great well-written firsthand narrative that mentions it though, by the Falconeer, and that brilliant piece will appear shortly.
But first, due to lack of data, I thought I'd divert a little attention to the role of Player's advertising, especially since Falconeer himself mentions the adverts as a motivating prompt.
Player's sold more cigarettes than they did of pipe tobacco,

but they actually had a very nice range of pt available.
Here's a few of the old adverts, including some of the ciggies:




























Player's in 1898 was spending £20,000 a year or more on sales promotion advertising.

"...most extraordinary of all was the offer from a small aviation company to advertise Gold Flake by sky-writing the words in smoke; unfortunately, though only £250 was asked for this service, Wills declined the offer, pointing out rather frostily that such an advertisement would be of 'a temporary nature' and 'would afford amusement only'.
Player's however, were more amenable to this particularly spectacular form of promotion and Nottinghamshire people may recall the words 'Player's Please' appearing high above their heads in the mid-1930s."

Click to expand...

Quick now, another short side-step, relating to a certain James Buchanan Duke (owner of the American Tobacco Company and namesake of Duke University) whom in 1901 had set out to buy himself some British tobacco companies. He actually did purchase Ogden's of Liverpool, but only owned it for a very short period because the UK companies rallied to form a powerful amalagation which couldn't be overcome - and that is the major reason why the history of the UK tobacco industry is so convoluted and intricate, everybody merging together in defensive posture to protect themselves led many of them to be under the same umbrella and eventually totally phased out by the larger companies who had more say in what was at stake and how things would be handled.
The reason I bring this up is to relate a short story of when Duke approached Player's back in 1901.

'Hello boys, I'm Duke from New York come to buy your business'.
With these horrific words, the president of the American Tobacco Co. greeted the brothers John Dane and William Goodacre Player.

He was, using the words of a Player's historian, 'politely, but firmly shown the door'.

Click to expand...

Another account describes the Player's bros as "somewhat sober-minded individuals" and that they were actually outraged at Dukes offer.


_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

.
Okay, now finally here we are back to Airman, in the good graces of Falconeer relating his tale.

:

:

:

Dateline 1965, Auld Mrs McCall's shop (her front room actually) Crawfordjohn village Lanarkshire.
Enter two 15 year old spotty teenagers who each buy a “Blue Spot” pipe priced at 5/- (25p) and agonise for about half an hour over which tobacco they are going to buy between them to put in the pipes.
At length a local farmer comes in for cigarettes and says to her, “Ach gie them that stuff ye keep fir the Meenister – that'll no kill them!”
The deal is done and they leave having further invested in a box of Swan matches apiece.
An hour or so later the pair are to be found on top of the local hill, The Mill Scar, crouched down in the lee of a dry stane dyke to get out of the wind attempting to get their pipes lit. Eventually having used practically a box of matches they succeed.....and are actually rewarded with one of the best smokes they have had to date.
The initial taste of the tobacco is slightly coppery, slightly tangy like woodsmoke, with tantalising flavour bursts and the aroma is superb – they find themselves chasing it with their noses, so good but elusive it is.
The tobacco was Players “Airman.”
Digressing for a moment, as usual – Chuck posted a link recently to a Greg Pease article defining Balkan, English, Scottish and God alone knows what other modern sub classification are now in vogue.
Things were much simpler then, certainly in Scotland. If it had any noticeable Latakia or Turkish ( as we called Orientals then ) note to it, we called it a “Balkan.”
If it had no topping, such as Cope's Escudo, Wills Cut Golden Bar, Players Gold Leaf, or Capstan we called it “Plain Virginia” - ignoring the fact that it might have had burley in it; but we were aided and abetted in this as manufacturers gave little information as to the content of their blends and simply described them as being “a mixture of virginia and other fine leaf.”
If it smelled sweet, we called it an “Aromatic.”
Anything else we called “Pipe Tobacco.”
It really was a simple system; I still use it and commend it!
Back to the story....from that moment on I fell in love with Balkans, and whenever possible I smoked them. “Airman” disappeared by the end of the 60s but by then I had discovered Sobranie Balkan...and oddly enough, and handy for an impecunious teenager, this premium tobacco could be had in 1/3rd of an ounce sampler tins. As I was usually “scratching” by Thursday these tinlets featured regularly in my purchasing plans.
Given this somewhat loose definition of a Balkan, I also discovered quite a few cheaper alternatives to Sobranie – amongst them Rubicon, Barney's Punchbowle and one of the Four Square Mixtures.
Having discovered Players Airman and being impressed with the lovely, full page, descriptive, informative adverts Players did in those days I became a big fan of Players Pipe Tobaccos – in particular Gold Leaf, Sherwood Flake and No Name Mixture.....but then Players sadly suddenly dropped most of these seriously good tobaccos and only kept the somewhat indifferent, to my mind, Medium and Whiskey blends.
A few years ago I discovered McClelland's Beacon Flake ( one of their blends produced for the Pipe Club of America ) and suddenly I had the nearest thing to my Gold Leaf back again, but I'd no real Balkan alternative and so gave up looking.
Presbyterian Mixture, I enjoyed greatly as a Sobranie alternative in the UK, but never could find it in Spain.... and then recently a friend on FaceBook mentioned Gawith's Skiff Mixture. I tried it and was instantly taken.....and the first puff of it took me straight back to 1965 – the human sense of smell really is evocative!
I have been laying in stocks of the stuff since.
Now having got Gold Leaf and Airman back....if just I could find a Sherwood substitute I'd be happy!
by Falconeer

circa 2013

Click to expand...

And, at last,

the pretty pictures!