Toque and Six Photo: reason behind the names!

matteob · June 2017

Just curious as to how photographs and an antique woman's bonnet relates to snuff! I misread Toque as Torque for a long time.

dan11 · June 2017

The Photo range developed in India when much of the population of snuffers were illiterate. So they could go into the shop and ask for the can of snuff that had whatever number of 'photos' on the can, 3 photo, 5 photo, 6 photo etc.

Not sure about Toque, but I'd hazard a guess it's because Toque rhymes with 'smoke', thus facilitating the catchy slogan of 'don't smoke, snuff Toque'.

basement_shaman · June 2017

Toque is a chefs hat. Could just be that @Roderick is the chef; with his talents, blends tobacco flour with scents. As for the reason he claimed that name for his company You would have to inquire the man himself.

matteob · June 2017

Thanks the 6 photo name origin is fascinating. It makes sense.

dan11 · June 2017

@matteob

There's been other threads on the origins of the 'photo's'. That's where I learnt it to be honest. I wonder about 41 Photo brand though, that's a lot of pictures to get on a can.

@basement_shaman

I never knew that, thanks. Perhaps it's a symbiosis of both our speculations. I agree, @Roderick is the man to ask that question :)

Roderick · June 2017

When we first started, I had the idea of creating a snuff that was easy to use and to replace cigarettes. The dispenser looked like a chefs hat and "Toque" was born. I also couldn't get Steve Miller's "Mid-night Toker" out of my mind.

matteob · June 2017

Oh right thanks :)

Aamon · June 2017

I remember asking 6photo about the name quite some time ago. I was asking 6photo about the difference between 6 photo, 7 photo and 41 photo, and the significance of the photos. He sent me back this message.

"These are two different snuff companies.

In north India snuff industry is mainly concentrated in my town Giddarbaha for more than hundred years.

In the early 20th century when the snuff trade started ,India population was mostly illiterate, so to distinguish the brand from other similar products, the owners started using numbers- 5 photos,6,7 photos & so on.Photos means pictures. So a 6 photo product has 6 pictures of the founder-my great-grandfather on its label.

The customer simply used to count the pictures to buy his choice of snuff.The trend caught on & every new company started to add up the number of photos"

So pretty much what dan11 had said.