How did Albert become a Prince?
By Benjamin Groff II GroffMedia© | benandsteve.com | ©2026
October 22, 2026
Good morning Coffee Drinkers. And if you are grandchildren, or children of pipe smoking folks, or maybe fathers and grandfathers. I had a flashback the other day. And it is a great way to start the day. It takes me back to the 1960s and early 1970s.
I was having a difficult time getting past writer’s block until The Other, the 1972 movie, came on. I’ve seen it numerous times, though I’m not exactly sure why. Usually, I’m doing something else while it plays in the background. Yet here it was again—and today, a familiar sound caught my attention.
The rattle of a Prince Albert tobacco can.
That sound took me straight back to childhood. My grandfather would hand me his empty cans, and I would fill them with all the necessities a child could find. Treasures, mostly. Then I’d run across the yard carrying them, announcing every step.
You could not sneak up on a sibling, a friend hiding from you, or the family pet. A Prince Albert can gave you away every time.
It wasn’t much help when you were hiding from your parents after some disastrous deed, either. Mom or Dad could follow that rattle as though they had sonar. Especially if you were trying to sit perfectly still but were shaking, scared to death.
Those cans had a scent all their own. The tobacco aroma faded over time, leaving the smell of an old tin, but you never quite stopped lifting the flap and poking your nose inside for another whiff. And somewhere along the way, you wondered just what Albert had done to become a prince.
An empty can could keep you occupied for hours. When you were little, it helped keep you out of trouble. As you got older, Prince Albert offered another opportunity.
Prank phone calls.
I couldn’t tell you how many times we called the local grocer and asked,
“Do you have Prince Albert in a can?”
“Yes, we do.”
“Well, you’d better let him out! He’s going to suffocate!”
Then we’d hang up, convinced we had pulled off something brilliant.
There was no caller ID to announce which kid was responsible. Looking back, the grocer probably heard that same joke ten times a day and patiently humored every one of us. We thought we were fooling him. I suspect he knew more than we gave him credit for.
That was about the extent of the mischief in my little world. No threats. No settling scores. Just a familiar joke, a patient grocer, and children who could find an afternoon’s entertainment in an empty tobacco can.
I hope others were lucky enough to know something like it.
And today, all these years later, that little can found one more use: it rattled a memory loose and gave me something to write about.
For the record Prince Albert was born a prince as the second son of Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (in Germany), and later received his formal British title of Prince Consort when Queen Victoria formally designated him as such in 1857.Prince Albert tobacco ended up on a can because R.J. Reynolds named the brand after Edward VII, who was known as Prince Albert before he became King of the United Kingdom.
