Bambang Setiawan: Cigarette collector from Yogyakarta

Bambang Setiawan: Cigarette collector from Yogyakarta

By Bambang M.

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Collecting antiques is no big deal. Millions
of people all over the world do it. But collecting cigarettes?

Bambang Setiawan, a teacher at Yogyakarta Art Teachers
Training Center, is probably the only one in Indonesia to have
become a cigarette collector.

No less than 4,000 packs of cigarettes are in his collection
which he displays at his office in Ngaglik, Sleman, some 10
kilometers north of here.

"Every pack on display has cigarettes in them," said Bambang,
who does not smoke. He used to be a smoker but managed to kick
the habit years ago.

Bambang, whose nickname is Orek, collects both local and
imported cigarettes. On display are various foreign brand names
like Marlboro, West, More, Cartier, Horizon and JPS; and local
brand names like Gudang Garam, Kansas and Sampoerna Mild.

He also stocks up local brand names which are known only in
limited localities that people have never heard of, such as Layar
Tancap, Odjolali and Grendel.

The prices range from Rp 200 per pack to Rp 250,000 per pack
when they were bought.

All the cigarettes are kept neatly in the cupboard. Local
brandnames are separated from the foreign ones. He also has a
different section for Indonesian cigarettes whose packaging have
been copied by other companies.

"No foreign cigarette's packaging have been found copied,"
said Bambang, a 1982 graduate of the Advertisement Department of
the Indonesian Institute of the Arts (ISI) of Yogyakarta.

To make his cigarette collection complete, Bambang also
collects anything which is directly or indirectly connected to
cigarettes, like matches, leaflets, cigarette cans. He even has a
small cigarette showcase.

"I will do anything to get something which has a connection to
cigarettes," he said.

Bambang recalled how he tried hard to get the small showcase
issued by Sampoerna Mild. Although he knew it was not for sale,
Bambang asked the owner, a cigarette seller on the street, to
sell the cupboard to him.

"I got it for Rp 250,000," said Bambang, who is also a
photographer.

Attracted to cigarettes' different packets, he started
collecting cigarettes in late 1996. "Actually they (the designs
on the packets) correspond with the advertising designs I studied
before," said Bambang.

Since then, he was ready to do anything to add to his
collection and was not even reluctant to go to remote areas just
to get one. Once, he got on his motorcycle to go to his hometown
in Surabaya from Yogyakarta. The trip, which only needs about
five hours of ride, took him 15 hours instead because he stopped
at a number of villages along the way just to hunt for village-
made cigarettes.

If he sees cigarettes that are not yet in his collection, he
goes nuts and will do anything to get it.

Once, he found some foreign cigarettes in a market in Semarang
and wanted to buy them all. Unfortunately, he did not bring
enough money to do so. He somehow persuaded the trader to keep
the merchandise until he got back to buy them all. He was lucky
because the trader agreed to do so. In no time, he went back to
Yogyakarta to collect the money and returned to Semarang to buy
them.

On a different occasion, Bambang found a foreign cigarette,
JPS, one of his favorites, in a shop in Yogyakarta. He wanted to
buy the whole box of 10 packs but did not have enough money.

"So I pawned my watch with a friend and got the money to buy
them," Bambang recalled.

Whenever the father of two goes abroad, he never forgets to
buy cigarettes from countries he visits. He also asks for
cigarettes as souvenirs from his friends who travel abroad.

His collection was also useful when he taught art teachers.
"Sometimes, when I teach art teachers, I bring my collection to
class to show how they are carefully designed," said Bambang who
now has more than 4,000 packs of cigarettes and plans to display
them to the public when their number reaches 5,000.

The character of a particular country, he said, was also
reflected through its cigarettes. France, for example, which is
known as the center for art and fashion, has artistic and
beautiful designs for their cigarette packets.

Most of all, the man considers his collection as a means to
entertain himself.

"This collection is my first wife," said Bambang, who also
collects old cameras, hotel soaps, phonograph records and places
his collections in his office to avoid intrusion from his wife
and daughter.

"Sometimes I just watch my collection in the night."