In his collection, Ivan Čekić from Sarajevo has 1,218 cigarette boxes from as much as 80 countries from all continents: Brazil, India, China, Russia, Japan, Korea, Chile, Canada, USA, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, former Yugoslavian states… He started collecting them four years ago.
“People collect serviettes, badges, pins… This was interesting to me since it is not so widespread among collectors”, said Ivan who comes to possession of the empty boxes mostly by exchanging with people via Facebook, and he also he gets numerous boxes from friends who bring them from vacations or from family living abroad.
Besides the standard cigarettes, Ivan’s collection also includes cigarettes of different length, thickness, aromas, etc. The oldest box in his collection is one dating back from 1952, produced in Tunisia and bought in Spain. His favorite one is a box of blue Marlboro, since he has been looking for it for four years and eventually got the box from his aunt in USA.
“I would never sell this, because I believe some of these boxes are priceless. Each of them has its story and value,” Ivan said, showing a box with a picture of Josip Broz Tito.
When it comes to warnings about the harmful effect of cigarettes which each tobacco company is obliged to include in its packages, Australia, Canada and France tend to show pictures of exceptionally disturbing content on the boxes of cigarettes in order to spread the awareness of the harmful effect of smoking cigarettes and numerous health risks it brings along.
However, Ivan says he is not a passionate cigarette consumer at all, and when asked if he had smoked all those cigarettes from the boxes, Ivan said, laughing:
“If I did, we wouldn’t be talking right now”.
(Source: klix.ba)
