iven the fact that Sherlock Holmes was one of the “great” smokers of all time –witness his Persian slipper, his three-pipe problems, the William Gillette posters with cigarettes, the famous profile with the calabash pipe, and so on– and the fact that tobacco companies have always been some of the major sponsors of almost every media form, it’s no surprise to find a proliferation of advertisements featuring the Great Detective. Indeed, many of these ads are now collectors’ items. Below are two of the better known. The first poster, with a Gillette-esque character in dressing gown, hails from 1907. The second is, of course, Basil Rathbone, then appearing in Dressed to Kill (1946), another of the “modern-day” Holmes series from Universal. I don’t know about you, but Rathbone here resembles the creepy guy that once hung out beneath the streetlamp down my block, who giggled uncontrollably whenever women walked past. It doesn’t exactly sell me on the idea of lighting up.

Note: Of course, I would be remiss in my civic duty not to remind you that cigarettes cause cancer, mouth sores, fetus problems, bad teeth, and a million other nasty things that prevent tobacco companies from getting rich. None of which hinders my secret desire to walk around with a calabash pipe, even if it does blow soap bubbles.