Before serving as a cigarillo tin, "Capriole" was primarily a promise: Austria's most famous horse breed, captured on tin, in mid-spectacular leap.
This old hinged-lid tin once held 20 "Capriole Light" cigarillos and depicts a jumping Lipizzaner – the white horse that learns its "high school" at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. Inside the lid, a longer, floridly worded advertising text from that era is preserved: about the "impetuous wildness of the untamed horse" and the tobacco blend of Sumatra, Java, and Havana leaves.
Dating: A "Austria Tabak" tax banderole, partially preserved on the side, allows for a rough classification to the period before the privatization of the Austrian tobacco monopoly – presumably the 1970s to 1990s. A more precise dating based on the design alone is not reliably possible.
Dimensions
- Length x Width: approx. 9.5 x 10 cm
- Height: approx. 1.8 cm
- Material: lithographically printed tin
Condition: Slight oxidation spots on the side surfaces, a small rust patch on the hinge, a faded adhesive tape residue in one corner of the lid. The interior print in the lid is remarkably well preserved. Not suitable for food – intended solely as a decorative and collectible item.
A pretty little container for jewelry, sewing accessories, or small odds and ends – or simply an eye-catcher for anyone who loves horses, Vienna, or old tobacco tins. Price is for 1 item.
St. Pölten, indoor flea market on a Sunday. Sold by a lady who was certainly over 85 and came every Sunday – less to sell, more to socialize and talk about everything under the sun with old friends. This small tin still carries the wildness of an untamed horse within it, just tamed enough to leap – just as she herself, Sunday after Sunday, was still out and about. Perhaps that's her own little capriole: staying curious when others have long since stood still.
Wildness tamed into grace — Objects with a soul · VintageAustriaShop
