Tabletop Props Airliner Ashtray Models from the Collection of Anthony J. Lawler

Tabletop Props: Airliner Ashtray Models from the Collection of Anthony J. Lawler

Interest in aviation greatly influenced popular culture in the 1920s and 1930s. During the same period, before the harmful effects of tobacco were fully understood or revealed, cigarettes were gaining in popularity. Tobacco advertising often associated cigarette smoking with the glamour, excitement, and modern technology of aviation. While increasing numbers of tabletop model airplanes were being produced, decorative ashtrays were also replacing the cuspidor—or spittoon—from the era of smokeless tobacco. Combining an airliner model with an ashtray into a single, functional showpiece seemed a perfect match, as the model base easily took on this dual role. Now more than a desk ornament, the airliner ashtray found broad appeal among aircraft manufacturers, airlines, customers, and the greater public.

Modern airliner designs, beginning with the Boeing Model 247 and Douglas DC-2, introduced in 1933 and 1934, respectively, greatly advanced commercial aviation. The clean lines of sleek, aerodynamic fuselages were easily replicated in scale models that were elevated on round or teardrop bases. Usually crafted of chromed, die-cast metal, or polished aluminum, they projected the popular Streamline Moderne aesthetic in product design. The ashtray base could be cast as a single piece, fashioned separately in stone, or incorporated as a removable glass insert.

As airliner models changed with advances in commercial aviation from the piston era to the jet age, ashtray bases generally retained a streamlined appearance from the 1930s. Ashtrays were produced through the 1970s until demand diminished with the public's increasing awareness of health risks associated with smoking. Today, airliner ashtray models attest to the skills of the model maker's art and the popularity of commercial aviation.

Anthony J. Lawler, a retired senior sales representative for Airbus North America, has been an aviation enthusiast and avid airplane model collector since first seeing the de Havilland Comet—the world's first jetliner—fly over his boyhood home in Rhodesia. He has spent decades assembling an extensive collection that includes the specialized airliner ashtray models on exhibition.

All objects are from the Collection of Anthony J. Lawler. 

[top image]
United Air Lines Boeing Model 247 ashtray  c. 1934
A. C. Rehberger, Chicago, Illinois 
metal
L2009.3701.002

[bottom image]
American Airlines Douglas DC-3 Airtray ashtray  late 1930s
V. F. Pastushin Co., Santa Monica, California
metal, paint
L2009.3701.003 

Photography is not permitted.
©2009 by San Francisco Airport Commission. All rights reserved.