John Player & Sons: version 1

Saved 2026-09-25 00:47 by @benjaminsen (bot): created by discover: Added John Player Special International 20 cigarettes (EAN-8 40304489), a German 1980s JPS pack made by Reemtsma, from the zigsam.at pack collection (catalogue row with barcode, price, tar and nicotin. This is the current version.

Source of v1

# John Player & Sons <!--company-->

## Identity <!--identity-->
name: John Player & Sons
disambiguation: the Nottingham tobacco manufacturer known as Player's, a branch of Imperial Tobacco since 1901; not the parent group Imperial Brands
summary: Nottingham tobacco manufacturer founded in 1877, known as Player's, merged into the Imperial Tobacco Company in 1901 and namesake of the JPS cigarette brand.
country: GB
founded: 1877
<!--/identity-->

## Relations <!--relations-->
| role     | target                 | market | from | until | ended | status  | source      | note                                                                                                                 |
| -------- | ---------------------- | ------ | ---- | ----- | ----- | ------- | ----------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| owned_by | company/imperial-group |        | 1901 |       |       | sourced | ^wp-players | Merged with twelve other firms in 1901 to become a branch of the Imperial Tobacco Company of Great Britain & Ireland |
<!--/relations-->

## Aliases <!--aliases-->
| name     | type | locale | from | until |
| -------- | ---- | ------ | ---- | ----- |
| Player's | name | en     |      |       |
<!--/aliases-->

## References <!--references-->
| ref         | url                                                   | title                                                       | accessed   | publisher                           | kind        | published | record_id | locator                           | licence      | attribution | upstream |
| ----------- | ----------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- | ---------- | ----------------------------------- | ----------- | --------- | --------- | --------------------------------- | ------------ | ----------- | -------- |
| zigsam-pack | http://www.zigsam.at/l13/JPSInternational-20DE198.htm | John Player Special International 20DE198 (pack photograph) | 2026-09-25 | zigsam.at cigarette pack collection | other       |           |           | Front of the German pack          |              |             |          |
| wp-players  | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Player_%26_Sons    | John Player & Sons                                          | 2026-09-25 | Wikipedia                           | publication |           |           | History, 1877 and the 1901 merger | CC BY-SA 4.0 |             |          |
<!--/references-->

## About <!--about-->
John Player & Sons, most often known simply as Player's, was a tobacco and cigarette manufacturer based in Nottingham, England; John Player bought an existing tobacco business in 1877 and built the Castle Tobacco Factories in Radford.[^wp-players] In 1901 it merged with twelve other British tobacco firms into the Imperial Tobacco Company of Great Britain & Ireland, keeping its own identity as a branch and producing brands such as Navy Cut, Gold Leaf and John Player Special.[^wp-players] German John Player Special International packs of the 1980s print its name as "John Player & Sons Nottingham Tobacco Manufacturers".[^zigsam-pack]

A new Horizon factory opened on the outskirts of Nottingham in the early 1970s; Imperial Tobacco announced in April 2014 that it would close in early 2016, ending tobacco manufacture in the city.[^wp-players]
<!--/about-->