Capstan Gold Navy Cut

Log in

SmokingPipes.com Updates

New Cigars




PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

anotherbob

Lifer
Mar 30, 2019
15,677
29,394
45
In the semi-rural NorthEastern USA
In the 1980s Players Navy Cut cigarettes were made by Phillip Morris in the US. As I remember it, the brand was discontinued when the US government started setting maximum nicotine levels for the total of a company's products. Players Navy Cut was a non filter and also had the highest nicotine content of any cigarette made in the USA. It was regulated out of existence!

I believe there was also a Player's Navy Cut made in the UK. I know there was a line of Players cigarettes produced in Europe, I believe in the uk. I know some were made with filters, but as I recall they also had a non filter that was very good. I don't remember if it was called Navy Cut or not.
yet we could get the Canadian versions imported with zero problem. Though from my understanding the explanation of them being regulated out of existence just isn't true. Especially considering that there was hardly any regulation on the additives and the way nicotine is measured for those tests is so easily faked and gamed that even if that is what happened to them, it wasn't this unavoidable thing. In fact that those tests got gamed so that cigarettes could be classified as light and have inaccurate low levels of nicotine listed on the packaging. To put it more directly they could have easily not altered the product in a way that would have effected the consumer significantly while still passing the tests. One example of how the machines got gamed were those holes around the outside of the filter on light cigarettes ones that effected how the testing machine drew on the cig but not how a person smoked the cigarette (the fingers or lips would cover those holes). Basically any way of restricting the draw for the machine but not for the smoker would work. It's one of the reason you had to pack the cigarettes by tapping the box. Either way one of the few cigarettes I can actually miss the taste of.
Though I smoked many packs of the Canadian ones. Side note worst cigarettes I smoked where these Chinese ones that came with trading cards. Trading cards about Chinese culture, like famous buildings or famous ancient jade carvings. Terrible cigs with a great package. Would buy those and bum out the cigs to nonfriends.
 

orvet

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jan 1, 2023
237
724
Willamette Valley of Oregon
My all-time favorite non filter cigarette with Virginia tobacco was an English import called Mitchell's Sovereign Gold Flake, at least that's as I remember the name, (I may have part of the name wrong).

They were a short cigarette the size of Camel non filter and came in a flat box of 20. They were made in the UK and were far superior to the American Players Medium Navy Cut. We carried them in the tobacco stores in the 1980s.
There was another really good import called Three Castles. They were almost as good as the Gold Flake.

Three Castles also made a shag cut cigarette rolling tobacco also made with Virginia tobacco's. It was the most popular selling premium rolling tobacco. We also had some customers who smoked it in their pipes.
 

Egg Shen

Lifer
Nov 26, 2021
1,073
3,569
Pennsylvania
In the 1980s Players Navy Cut cigarettes were made by Phillip Morris in the US. As I remember it, the brand was discontinued when the US government started setting maximum nicotine levels for the total of a company's products. Players Navy Cut was a non filter and also had the highest nicotine content of any cigarette made in the USA. It was regulated out of existence!

I believe there was also a Player's Navy Cut made in the UK. I know there was a line of Players cigarettes produced in Europe, I believe in the uk. I know some were made with filters, but as I recall they also had a non filter that was very good. I don't remember if it was called Navy Cut or not.
PNC cigs were available in the USA in the 1996-1998 timeframe. I smoked them. Mine had filters and I’m unsure if unfiltered ones were offered. They tasted great. The package said something of oriental tobaccos being in it. They were made by Philip Morris and distributed in limited markets in the US. I also know they were available in Canada in the early 2000’s albeit in different packaging and seemingly a different composition of leaf, just going off taste.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Briar Lee

Arthur Frayn

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jan 8, 2023
200
840
66
Sonoma county, Calif.
I also smoked Players Navy Cut, when I smoked cigs in the 80's in the SF Bay area. I used to get those or Three Castles RYO or Export Blues. I lkied to stop in at Drucker's on University Ave in Berkeley.

The was also a fancy tobacco shoppe on Market st in the Embarcadero in Downtown SF. I cant remember the name of that shop. If I only knew then what I know now about tobacco. Of course as a young man in college, I was too broke to do anything about it.

Does anyone remember that tobacco shop in the Embarcadero? As I remember it, It catered to pipe smoking lawyer and City Executive types and I was petty shaggy looking in a frayed Levi jacket and a downy mutton chop mane. The older gent that was helping me had a woolen suit vest with a watch chain. He was amused at my appearance as I recall.
 
Last edited:

didimauw

Moderator
Staff member
Jul 28, 2013
9,894
31,609
34
Burlington WI
I have lots of Orlick’s Golden Slices, PS Luxury Twist Flake, and Newminister 400, and all are excellent pure Virginia flakes. I love PS Luxury Navy Flake so much I have about eight pounds of it, and it has a touch of Perique.

When I was a 14 year old boy in 1972 the Humansville FFA took a field trip to the American Royal in Kansas City, and we stayed in the Muelbach Hotel.

Downtown Kansas City was nothing but a Sodom and Gomorrah grade red light district then, with pimps riding in Cadillacs and Lincolns and hookers plying their trade, and a series of bars with neon signs and old middle aged men inside with barflies, their cackles audible as I walked the streets.

As a good Christian boy, I knew better to go inside those barrooms, but there was a slot in the wall tobacco shop the owner would sell anything there to anyone old enough to peep over the counter.

I bought a few cans of Dunhill pipe tobaccos and a package of Dunhill cigarettes and a couple of packages of Player’s Medium Navy Cut.

Walking down that sidewalk, in my FFA jacket, I discovered the pure Virginia flavor of Player’s.

Capstan Gold is nothing, but Virginia tobacco flavor. No toppings, no casings, no grass or citrus notes, but only rich, pure Virginia taste.

Player’s were 65 cents a package when Marlboros cost 40 cents.

MacBaren has duplicated the formula, and you don’t have to go slumming to buy them, in the glow of city lights.

The only Virginia tobacco I was ever able to finish a whole tin, was Orlik golden slices. And that was my first year of pipe smoking. I really wish I like Virginia blends, as you made it look really delicious in the Lee pipe. Maybe I'll keep slowly trying my Amphora Virginia pouch....
 

orvet

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jan 1, 2023
237
724
Willamette Valley of Oregon
I also smoked Players Navy Cut, when I smoked cigs in the 80's in the SF Bay area. I used to get those or Three Castles RYO or Export Blues. I lkied to stop in at Drucker's on University Ave in Berkeley.

The was also a fancy tobacco shoppe on Market st in the Embarcadero in Downtown SF. I cant remember the name of that shop. If I only knew then what I know now about tobacco. Of course as a young man in college, I was too broke to do anything about it.

Does anyone remember that tobacco shop in the Embarcadero? As I remember it, It catered to pipe smoking lawyer and City Executive types and I was petty shaggy looking in a frayed Levi jacket and a downy mutton chop mane. The older gent that was helping me had a woolen suit vest with a watch chain. He was amused at my appearance as I recall.
I don't know the name of the shop in the Embarcadero, was it Telford's? I believe Telford's closed, at least I thought I had heard that. As I recall there was another smoke shop on the south side of Geary Street a little West of Union Square. I spent about a year around the Bay Area in 1972- 1973 after I got medevaced home. I lived in the Marine Barracks on Treasure Island for the first few months after surgery and then got an apartment on Geary Street.
The smoke shop on Geary Street was on my walk down to the bus station every morning to catch the bus to Treasure Island. I can't remember the name of the shop and I think I was only in there once or twice because he was usually closed in the morning when I walked by about 0630 hrs.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Arthur Frayn

rmbittner

Lifer
Dec 12, 2012
2,759
1,994
I also smoked Players Navy Cut, when I smoked cigs in the 80's in the SF Bay area. I used to get those or Three Castles RYO or Export Blues. I lkied to stop in at Drucker's on University Ave in Berkeley.
Given the aura that now surrounds Drucquers as a pipe smoker’s haven, it kills me that it sounds like you were just going there for cigarettes! If you had been shopping for pipe tobacco, Greg Pease himself might have helped you.
 
Jan 19, 2022
7
51
This is the most delicious pipe tobacco I’ve ever smoked since 1972.

The tin reads it contains bright Virginia tobaccos from three continents blended into flakes.

There are 12 flakes of tobacco in a 1.75 ounce can that cost $18 from Smoking Pipes.

The taste is pure Virginia, as good as Player’s Medium Navy Cut cigarettes were, years ago.

A novice might smoke this, but it would ruin him for lesser quality tobaccos.

You need to try this.

The only reason everyone doesn’t smoke it is cost.

View attachment 187565View attachment 187566View attachment 187567
Just got 3 tins of this and 3 of Capstan Blue. Thanks for the pics!