We’ve all heard about a famous bluesman or country singer that started his career on a simple homemade cigar box guitar.  With a list of artists including Jimi Hendrix, Roy Clark and Carl Perkins, the cigar box guitar has been the precursor to many great careers and countless inspiring stories.  It’s a wonder that nobody has documented its magnificent history until now.

IN THE BEGINNING:

According to Dr. Tony Hyman, curator of the National Cigar Museum cigar boxes as we know them didn’t exist prior to mid-1800.  Prior to then, cigars were shipped in larger crates containing 100 more per case.  Eventually, cigar manufacturers started using smaller, more portable boxes with 20-50 cigars per box. Cigars were extremely popular in the 19^th Century, and therefore, many empty cigar boxes would be lying around the house. Using a cigar box to create a guitar, fiddle or a banjo was an obvious choice for a few crafty souls.

The earliest proof of a cigar box instrument found thus far is an etching of two Civil War Soldiers at a campsite with one playing a cigar box fiddle.  This was created by French artist, Edwin Forbes, who worked as an official artist for the Union Army.  The cigar box fiddle appears to sport an advanced viola-length neck attached to a “Figaro” cigar box.  The etching is copyrighted 1876. There is some evidence to suggest that an earlier sketch of the same subject was made by Forbes around 1864 to 1865.

In addition to the etching, plans for a cigar box banjo were published in 1884 by Boy Scout’s founder, Daniel Carter Beard in The Book Buyer in “Christmas Eve with Uncle Enos”.  The plans, eventually entitled “How to Build an Uncle Enos Banjo”, were published again in 1890 in Beard’s immensely popular American Boy’s Handy Book. The plans showed a step-by-step description for a playable 5-string fretless banjo made from a cigar box.

(You can download the entire Uncle Enos Banjo plans for free when you join the Cigar Box Guitar Forum at Yahoo!Groups.)

It would seem that the earliest cigar box instruments would be extremely crude and primitive, however this is not always the case.  The National Cigar Box Guitar Museum has acquired two cigar box fiddles built in 1886 and 1889 that seem very playable and well built.  The 1886 fiddle was made for an 8 year old boy and is certainly playable, but the 1889 fiddle has a well carved neck and slotted violin headstock.  The latter instrument was made for serious playing.

Adults with considerable woodworking skills were making these instruments, whether for a child (as documented with our 1886 fiddle) or for themselves (such as the Civil War Soldier).

INTO THE 20^TH CENTURY

By the 20^th Century, times were still lean for many Americans and cigars gained even more popularity.  The “television of the day” was the trusty Sears and Roebuck Catalog that allowed families to dream of items they’d love to own.  It also provided a catalyst for more homemade creations. 

In her magnificent book Fiddle Fever, writer Sharon Arms Doucet describes Felix LeBlanc, a young Cajun boy who makes a cigar box fiddle after studying violin pictures in the Sears Catalog.  The story, based on the life of Cajun fiddler Canray Fontenot, details the entire building process.  “Canray said that he really wanted a fiddle when he was a little boy,” Doucet told us, “and an uncle or somebody told him to use a cigar box.  It was somewhat ‘common knowledge’ for them to build instruments like this,” she said.  Fontenot and the fictional Felix both used a tree branch as a bow, pine tar as resin and screen wire as strings (although Felix eventually replaced the screen wire with old strings from his uncle’s fiddle.)  <click here to purchase this book on Amazon.com.>