I just received an old F&T tin that I bought from eBay. It was listed as empty, but on arrival it’s about 3/4s full and has a label on top proclaiming it as “Astho Roth”.

The tin lists addresses in Oxford and Cambridge as well as the Haymarket address – a bit of research shows that F&T occupied 130 High Street, Oxford from 1930-1968 and 1970-1976+, and an autobiography of one Frank Bird says he worked at F&T Tobacconists on Kings Parade when he was 15 which looks to have been around 1951, so I’m inclined to date the snuff around the 50s, given that records show another tobacconist in the Cambridge location from 1962. It has a very old musty smell which may be by intent or just a result of the passage of time. Certainly an interesting one for the collection, although I’ll be mostly sticking to the Morlaix today.