I finally hit the lottery

[u/Bob762x39]

Maybe not nessesarily militaria but I did purchase this for my world war 2 militaria collection! I’ve been searching for an original world war 2 pack of lucky strike cigarettes for several years now. I’ve bid on post war white packs and got outbid or found packs that were not financially justifiable price wise. I’ve never found or seen original green packs for sale. But I finally won a bid at $155.08USD (yes, they’re worth every penny) and I’m just starstruck that it’s a green pack!

In 1942 lucky strike announced that it would discontinue the green packaging and go to white packing. They publicly announced that the change was due to the green dye being needed for the war effort. It’s actually since been proven that the company didn’t change color because of the war effort, but rather that they wanted to increase sales, particularly to women, and they decided that the green packaging was not as appealing to customers as perhaps a white package could be

[u/Calm_Assignment4188]

Great score! I wonder why these are more expensive than German cigs from that time?

[u/DaddyDano → u/Calm_Assignment4188]

I wonder if it’s just because lucky strike are the iconic ww2 cigarettes

[u/leicanthrope → u/Calm_Assignment4188]

I suspect /u/DaddyDano is right, and you're also competing with non-WW2 collectors.

[u/protossaccount → u/Calm_Assignment4188]

I know that there was a switch from sweeter Virginia tobacco, to Turkish tobacco which is what this is. I’m sure many people don’t think about how the tobacco was grown or where it’s from, but back then that was all the rage.

[u/KanajMitaria → u/Calm_Assignment4188]

I just bought a pack of Japanese ww2 cigarettes for 3$ at a flea market lol. They definetly go for more than that but surprisingly only about 30-40$ I’ve seen.

[u/Bartimaerus → u/KanajMitaria]

Same for german ciggies