Questionable Quidity and the Road to Achieving a Faster and More Productive Smoking-Related Disease

JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

Cigarette manufacturers--like anyone other entity in business--want their clients to consume as much product as possible.  Or buy their goods as often as possible.  With that in mind I'm a little surprised that the Big Five never adopted any of the ideas shown below, all helping the smoker to get at their next cigarette as quickly as possible. For example, in the event hat there were no ashtrays around, several people patented their notions for in-the-cigarette-pack ashtrays, so that no matter where a person was, they could always clicks their ash and stow their butts back in the pack.   Of course, I'm sure that the Makers determined almost instantly that this concern affects perhaps an immeasurable percentage of smokers; if someone wanted (read "needed") a cig, and there was no ash tray, they can just, well, smoke their cigarette and not use an ash tray. Or go outside.  OR something.  Or perhaps the manufacturers recognized that they could actually sell the idea to some of their smokers, but then realized instantly that carrying around ciggie waste is not attractive and perhaps a stinking mess.  Or they recognized that--like Lee Iaccoca fighting seat belts because it made cars look "unsafe"--having  place to deposit cigarette waste right there with the cigarettes might send a message to the consumer that their product is messy and in the end very unattractive.  Best leave the unattractive bits in a tray somewhere else.  Or of course share the end product of smoking enjoyment with others by leaving it on the ground.

Then of course to remind consumers how useful the process of smoking is, there were other inventions that combined the products of this act with some other highly useful enterprise, like this cigarette lighter/pencil sharpener with what might have been a whistle attachment:

 

And if you found yourself needing/wanting a smoke but didn't have a free hand, there was always the following device, which allowed the consumer to smoke their stuff through a tube:

Speaking to the humility of smokers was this device that allowed the user to extinguish their smoking product automatically, no matter what the size of the burning member, reminding the user that if they wanted to actually stop, they could:

 

Again, another extension of the art of cigarette smoking and how useful smoking implements can be--the cigarette lighter with built-in flashlight:

Cigarette lighter with built-in extinguisher:

Pen with built-in cigarette lighter (1977):

And another example of a very complicated instrument for extinguishing a cigarette, sending a message with I-don't-know-what undertones:

These are just some of the many glorious appendages to smoking and making it easier--many more can be found at the U.S. Patent Office, like all of the examples above. 

Comments

[Techherding]

My favorite, by far, is the one shaped like a tiny little coffin. Hard to believe that didn't catch on.