Joseph Cohen & Son

Joseph Cohen & Son, Tobacconist Furnishers, importers of Cigars and Tobacconists' Fancy Goods, 80, Buchanan Street.—

    One of the first houses of its kind in Glasgow is that of Messrs. Joseph Cohen & Son, the well-known cigar importers and merchants in all classes of tobacconists’ fancy goods. This old-established and noted business was founded as far back as 1840, and has been centred at the above address for the past ten years, the present sole proprietor of the concern being Mr. Morris T. Cohen, a gentleman whose name is known throughout the entire tobacconists’ trade of Scotland. The house, indeed, is one of the oldest in its particular line.

    The premises occupied at the address given in Buchanan Street comprise two spacious and commodious floors, one for stock and showroom purposes, and the other for rooms which are the scene of a very actively conducted and extensive industry in meerschaum pipe making and amber mounting. For these latter purposes a numerous staff of first-class and eminently skilled workmen are employed. The stocks held in the commodious and well-appointed warerooms are very large and comprehensive, and their various departments comprise full and complete selections of distinctly superior goods in meerschaum pipes, of patent and ordinary design and splendid quality, imitation meerschaum pipes, briar-root and cherry-wood pipes, including the famous “G.B.D.”, and other celebrated briars beloved of smokers throughout the world ; plain and fancy French clays of every description, pipe mounts and tobacco pouches, the latter in most attractive variety of india-rubber, leather, seal and beaver skin, &c. ; fusee and match-boxes, snuff-boxes, tobacco boxes, jars, cutters, blocks, scales, &c. ; glass cases and shop fittings generally ; cigar tubes and cases, cigarette tubes and cases ; ambers, plain and mounted, purses, walking sticks in the most exhaustive diversity, every variety of stick being represented ; and an immense stock of Havana and British cigars, cigarettes, Manilla and Indian cigars, and the always popular Manilla cheroots.

    A great speciality consists in Indian cigars. These smokable and thoroughly delicious goods are constantly growing in favour, and are now imported direct from the Trichinopoly and other districts by Messrs. Cohen at the rate of half a million at a time. This house was the first to introduce this class of cigars in Glasgow, under the well-known name of the “Indiana Brand”.

    A very large trade is also done in sponges, chamois leathers, and leeches, in which line Messrs. Cohen are probably the oldest Glasgow house. In short, there is no detail of tobacconists’ stock that is not supplied by the firm, who make a leading feature of the complete equipment of tobacconists' shops with every requisite for the trade. Anyone can come to this establishment and, having taken a shop, can give orders (up to any amount) for its complete fitting up, and take possession the next day, fully confident of finding everything in readiness to commence selling over the counter at once. Messrs. Cohen have a splendid reputation for the promptitude with which they carry out contracts of this kind, and also for the moderate and favourable nature of their terms and charges. The whole business is conducted with a vigour and capacity that have long been personal characteristics of its proprietary, and the trade controlled, which is entirely of a wholesale order, extends all over Glasgow and throughout the whole of Scotland, as well as to England, Ireland, and the Channel Islands.

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