A chronological guide to embossed Lipton Tea tins

Abstract

Embossed Lipton Tea tin cans are a ubiquitous form of material culture found on archaeological sites internationally wherever Lipton Tea was sold (the present author is based in Alaska). Many of the tins dating from the first half of the 20th century once exhibited paper labels, which almost never survive archaeologically. I instead purchased tins with paper labels, which provide chronological information, on the internet. These, along with dated magazine and newspaper advertisements spanning from the late 19th to mid 20th centuries, allowed for the development of a scheme to date different embossed Lipton Tea tins through time.

Notes

1 Waugh 1950, 26–59; ‘http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Lipton’.

2 ‘http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_tea_culture’; ‘http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tea_in_India’; ‘http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/thomas-j-lipton-company-history/’.

3 Waugh 1950, 26–59; ‘http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Lipton’.

4 Waugh 1950, 26–59.

5 By ‘embossed’, I mean the metal has been raised to form the letters, not painted or lithographed on to the surface of the metal.

6 Waugh 1950, 203.

7 ‘http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/topics/rationing_in_ww2’; ‘http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_Kingdom’.