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“SHOULD A GENTLEMAN offer a Tiparillo to a violinist?” asks a full-page ad, which features in ‘The Male Mystique’, a book about vintage advertising in mens’ magazines.

The answer, according to cigarette brand ad execs over fifty years ago? This:

After a tough evening with the Beethoven crowd, she loves to relax and listen to her folk-rock records. Preferably, on your stereo. She’s open-minded. So maybe tonight you off her a Tiparillo. She might like it – the slim cigar with a white tip. Elegant. And, you dog, you’ve got both kinds on hand.

Tiparillo Regular and new Tiparillo M with menthol – her choice of mild smoke or cold smoke.

Well? Should you offer? After all, if she likes the offer, she might start to play. No strings attached.

Our friends at Business Insider flipped through the rest of the book and picked out what they deemed ‘the worst’ of the offerings from the 1960s and 1970s.

Looking at the collection, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the men of the era worried about little else other than smoking, drinking, fashion and their hair.

All images: The Male Mystique

Are these the most irritating Irish ads ever?

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