Sauer, Farrell, & Co. was a cigar manufacturing company located in Suffield, Connecticut, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Suffield was the site of the country's first cigar factory, which opened in 1810 after its owners hired a Cuban to teach its workers how to roll tobacco. The town became home to numerous factories that used local crops and sold a variety of cigars throughout the eastern United States. Not much is known about Sauer, Farrell, & Co. in particular, but its involvement in cigar manufacturing and selling appear to reflect the general activities of Suffield cigar factories during this time.

Heppenheimer & Maurer was a lithography company that created box labels for cigar manufacturers to paste on the inside lid of a box of cigars. Sample books like the one in this collection were distributed to local cigar manufacturers, who could then order the labels by their designated number. Frederick Heppenheimer, from New York City, was one of the earliest and most prolific commerical lithographers. He later partnered with Louis Maurer, another well-regarded artist, to create Heppenheimer & Maurer in 1872. Maurer was one of the few cigar label lithographers who regularly signed his work. The company was one of dozens of lithography companies from this period whose art reflected everyday life in the United States.