Green’s Dictionary of Slang

cigar box n.

[the flimsiness of the cigar-box construction]

1. a violin.

[UK]Partridge DSUE (8th edn).

2. (US) a cheaply built house; thus cigar box row, the area of town in which the poor live.

[US]E. Tidyman Shaft 75: Let’s get the hell out of this cigar box!