If your perception of Seth Rogen begins and ends with his scruffy stoner/everyman persona, you might be surprised to discover that the actor, producer, comedian and cannabis brand entrepreneur is also an ashtray aesthete of the highest caliber, owning a massive museum-worthy collection of very fancy ashtrays from times gone by.
Seth Rogen and some favorite ashtrays from his extensive collection.
Rogen’s collection has been amassed over the past two and a half decades and is chock-full of colorful, midcentury modern-style ashtrays. He believes his 567 or so pieces could possibly be the largest collection of antique ashtrays in the world. (The arbiter of such things, the Guinness Book of Records, does not distinguish between antique and non-antique in recognizing one Australian’s 1,560 pieces as the world’s largest collection of ashtrays.) But even without that superlative, it’s an impressive collection, comprised of pieces from the Golden Age of ashtrays, the period from the 1920s to the late 1970s during which exceptional craftsmanship focused on what is essentially a miniature fireproof trash can.
Though most of Rogen’s collection has been meticulously cataloged and stored away, a few dozen pieces — including lantern-shaped ceramic ashtrays designed to hang from tree branches and stackable mini ashtrays in a rainbow of colors — are on display at the Hollywood offices of Houseplant, the cannabis and home goods brand launched by Rogen and his longtime friend Evan Goldberg in 2021. Those offices are where, a few years ago, I first noticed the massive stash of ash catchers.
And it’s in that cottage-like space — part showroom and part mid-century modern VIP party venue, with a turntable near the fireplace and houseplant fixtures and ashtrays scattered across every available surface — that Rogen met with me on a recent summer afternoon to highlight a handful of his favorite pieces and talk about sharing the collection more broadly with the world. (An interactive ashtray exhibit, anyone?)
The stackable hedgehog-shaped ashtray by Walter Bosse, stacked…
…and unstacked.
