Ruby Queen – Republic of China

Original 20-cigarette soft packet in salmon-pink paper with green and gold printing and foil inner wrapper. English-language Ruby Queen branding, W.D. & H.O. Wills, Bristol & London, with exhibition awards to reverse. Manufactured in the Republic of China for the Chinese market. Retains its original Chinese Ministry of Finance cigarette consolidated-tax revenue band, indicating use under the Nationalist government’s cigarette tax system introduced in 1927. Around this same period, Ruby Queen packaging for the Chinese market transitioned from English-language branding to Chinese-language packaging, making this surviving English-language example representative of the earlier form used around the time of that change.

W.D. & H.O. Wills «Ruby Queen» Cigarettes, 200-cigarette carton containing ten 20-cigarette packets, Chinese market. Original Ruby Queen carton retained within a protective paper overwrap tied with string. Acquired from a German family who found the cigarettes in their grandfather’s attic, stored in a suitcase for around 80 years. His wife and daughters returned from China to Munich in 1935, while he remained until the end of WWII, when the Soviet advance into northern China forced his departure. He brought the Ruby Queen cigarettes back with him. During the U.S. occupation of Munich, the family home was requisitioned, and troops later left behind three cartons of Marlboro, one carton of Chesterfield, about 60 Philip Morris packs, seven Old Gold, four Raleigh and one Camel pack, all with wartime tax-free stamps. These were stored together and rediscovered decades later. Provenance based on family history.