cigarettes

For the nearly all of their first fifty years of existence, camel sat at the top of the marketplace. But a shift in consumer tastes toward filter cigarettes, begining in the late 1950s, led to a slow erosion of Camel’s market share. To stem this loss, R.J. Reynolds began one of the most clever and effective campaigns in advertising history. On its 75th anniversary in 1988 a suave, new character appeared in the Camel Advertising: Joe Camel. This began the most recent chapter in a tradition of fine advertising started by R.J. Reynolds himself. This book documents the Camel advertising from 1964 to 1995. In addition to traditional posters and signs, these years saw the introduction of hundreds of premiums and merchandise bearing the Camel logos that have found their way into collections of tobacco memorabilia around the world. Each piece is illustrated in full color and current values are given to help the collector.

Attempts have been made to employ camels as cavalry and dragoon mounts and as freight animals in lieu of horses and mules in many regions of the world. In some places, such as Australia, some of the camels have become feral and are considered to be dangerous to travelers on cheap camel cigarettes. The camels are mostly used in combat because of their hardiness outside of combat and their ability to scare off horses in close ranges. The horses detest the smell of camels, and therefore, the horses in the vicinity are harder to control. The United States Army had an active camel corps stationed in California in the 19th century, and the brick stables may still be seen at the Benicia Arsenal in Benicia, California, now converted to artists’ and artisans’ studio spaces. Camels have been used in wars throughout Africa, and also in the East Roman Empire as auxiliary forces known as Dromedarii recruited in desert provinces.