The Egyptian cigarette industry, during the period between the 1880s and the end of the First World War, was a major export industry that influenced global fashion. It was notable as a rare example of the global periphery setting trends in the global center in a period when the predominant direction of cultural influence was the reverse, and also as one of the earliest producers of globally traded manufactured finished goods outside the West.

The development of a major cigarette industry in Egypt in the late nineteenth century was unexpected, given that Egypt generally exported raw materials and imported manufactured goods, that Egyptian-grown tobacco was always of poor quality, and that the cultivation of tobacco in Egypt was banned in 1890 (a measure intended to facilitate the collection of taxes on tobacco).

One reason for the development of the industry in Egypt was the imposition of a state tobacco monopoly in the Ottoman Empire, a measure designed to increase Ottoman government revenue. This resulted in the movement of many Ottoman tobacco merchants, usually ethnic Greeks, to Egypt, a country which was culturally similar to and was in fact arguably de jure a part of the Ottoman Empire but outside the tobacco monopoly as a result of its de facto occupation by the United Kingdom.


The founder of the industry was Nestor Gianaclis, a Greek who arrived in Egypt in 1864 and in 1871 established a factory in the Khairy Pasha palace in Cairo. After British troops began being stationed in Egypt in 1882, British officers developed a taste for the Egyptian cigarettes and they were soon being exported to the United Kingdom. Gianaclis and other Greek industrialists such as Ioannis Kyriazis of Kyriazi frères successfully produced and exported cigarettes using imported Turkish tobacco to meet the growing world demand for cigarettes in the closing decades of the nineteenth century.

Egyptian cigarettes made by Gianaclis and others became so popular in Europe and the United States that they inspired a large number of what were, in effect, locally produced counterfeits. Among these was the American Camel brand, established in 1913, which used on its packet three Egyptian motifs: the camel, the pyramids, and a palm tree. Fellow Greeks in the United States also imported or produced such cigarettes. For example, S. Anargyros first imported Egyptian Deities and then produced Murad, Helmar and Mogul, and the Stephano Brothers produced Ramses II.

Production of major manufacturers of luxury cigarettes in Cairo, 1897-1901

	1897		1899		1901
Company	kg	cigarettes	kg	cigarettes	kg	cigarettes
Kyriazi Freres	76,386	51,726,550	120,987	89,414,500	140,654	108,174,225
Nestor Gianaclis	37,178	30,537,110	55,203	48,025,660	70,680	56,000,000
Dimitrino et Co.	24,569	18,564,135	27,916	21,982,380	30,980	26,000,000
Th. Vafiadis et Co.	21,568	14,033,900	23,861	16,330,060	32,067	23,000,000
M. Melachrino et Co.	17,920	12,096,340	20,782	13,936,626	60,237	46,000,000
Nicolas Soussa Freres	-	-	-	-	29,260	24,000,000
Others	47,952	33,583,909	59,224	43,636,800	70,982	64,313,976
Totals	225,573	160,541,944	307,973	233,326,026	434,860	347,288,201

 

The Collection

Country	Company / Identifyers	Brand
Egypt (Caire Egypte)	Cigarettes Egyptienne / Masonic / Handshake	NCC

 

• Cigarettes Egyptienne

  Not sure of the manufacturer?

  

Country	Company / Identifyers	Brand
Egypt	M.K. / SPHINX & picture of Sphinx	Sphinx

 

• Sphinx

  Need to find the name of MK as a manufacturer

  

Country	Company / Identifyers	Brand
Egypt (Cairo Egypt)	Dimitrie ( picture of a Phoenix)	Luxina

 

• Luxina

  from Dimitrino et Co ??