14/08/2026

"Marina Extra Longues" Brand (c. 1960s)

Why he long?

We are back to Belgium today! Hooray! And I am also late again! Recently I started writing a Visual Novel game which has been taking up most of my brain, though, I need to keep up with this too! I think it’s important to have several projects going at once in order for bursts of inspiration, so I will hopefully shuffle back to this. I need to find a few more writers though..

Anyway! This is quite a sweet one. The brand was created by Vander Elst on November 16th 1962, though Vander Elst more famously launched the brand Belga in 1923 which is much more widely known. Their main factory was Tabacofina-Vander Elst, located in Merksem near Antwerp. It only closed relatively recently (well, maybe not as recent as I’d like to think!) in 2004, when production moved to the Netherlands.

Marina of course is laying out something of a naval theme. It’s a little hard to make out but the pack of cigarettes features what appears to be the Russian naval ensign complete with an anchor. It’s likely that this isn’t a direct link however, blue and white are classic naval colours and this design is likely aiming to capture a more general naval motif.

The real star of course is the Dachshund, the perfect visual pun to “Extra Long” cigarettes you could get! A very cute design fitting of the era. Speaking of, this label is likely from the late 1960s to early 1970s. This fits with the brand trademark and the rough production run of this particular set of matches, so we can confidently put it around here.

This is a very sweet one overall. I especially like how the body of the Dachshund resembles the filter of a cigarette, and how its eye is looking up and back to the Marina logo. It’s very visually cohesive on the little details, whoever designed this one must’ve had fun with it.