For sale is a vintage mid-century SIR RALEIGH SMOKING TOBACCO TIN made by Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation, Louisville, Kentucky. This lithographic 14 Ounce tin would have been opened with a key. The tin’s lid is missing and the tin has surface wear. The tin features the iconic sir Walter Raleigh logo. The tin measures 5 inches diameter and stands 4 3/4 inches tall. A nice entry level Tobacciana collectible
Brown & Williamson was founded in Winston (today’s Winston-Salem), North Carolina, as a partnership of George T. Brown and his brother-in-law Robert Lynn Williamson, whose father was already operating two chewing tobacco manufacturing facilities. In February 1894, the new company, calling itself Brown & Williamson, hired 30 workers and began manufacturing in a leased facility. In 1927, the Brown and Williamson families sold the business to London-based British American Tobacco. The business was reorganized as the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation. The company became infamous as the focus of investigations for chemically enhancing the addictiveness of cigarettes. Its former vice-president of research and development, Jeffrey Wigand, was the whistleblower in an investigation conducted by CBS news program 60 Minutes, an event that was dramatized in the film The Insider. Wigand claimed that B&W had introduced chemicals such as ammonia into cigarettes to increase nicotine delivery and increase addictiveness.
