see yourself at 8 years old , just having intersect the goal line of an egg - and - spoon raceway one step behind the victor . A viewer pats you on the shoulder and , shaking her headland , says , “ tight , but no cigar . ” Never having hear the set phrase before , you assume the first - piazza closer will soon be off somewhere fume their hard - earn stogy .
Sincecigarsaren’t customarily given to children as rewards or for any other reason , the viewer in this fanciful situation was surely using the phrasal idiom as a way to convey that you came really nigh to success but did n’t quite get there . In the early 20th century , however , the cigar in question was a real one .
Before squeeze fauna became the golden banner forcarnivalprizes , people often competed to win cigars at shoot cooking stove and for other butt - relatedgames . As Barry Popikexplainson his blog The Big Apple , funfair barkers would call out “ Close , but no cigar ! ” to anyone who come down just short of clinching the desired reward .
“ You begin investing a cent in three rings , which you endeavour to throw in such a way of life as to land them round the hold of a tongue stick into the wall , ” Robert Machraywrotein his 1902 bookThe Night Side of London . “ But — but you do n’t succeed . … Another centime — and this clip you accept defeat , and move on to the next stall , where another centime gives you the privilege of trying to roll three balls into certain mess with numbers attached thereunto . Should you score twenty you will win a cigar . But you do no more than score nine . ”
By the tardy twenties , “ Close , but no cigar ” had started showing up outside bazaar and carnivals . ALong Island Daily Pressarticle from May 1929 titled “ Close ; But No Cigar ” described an unlucky New Yorker appoint Hugo Straub who was “ believed to have specify a human beings ’s criminal record in the business of getting - defeated - for - the - presidential term ” because he “ finished second in no less than two presidential subspecies within one week . ”
Maybe Straub treated himself to a high - quality cigar ( or two — one for each loss ) as a comfort prize .
[ h / tThe Big Apple ]
