I’ve been finding opened boxes of Cuban cigars at my aunt’s. Well, the boxes are closed, but not sealed, and several cigars are missing. They’re at least 35 years old, and probably pre-Cuban revolution. How can I date them, and are they going to be of any interest to a cigar smoker?
35 years outside a humidor??? I’d rather smoke this morning’s newspaper. Yech!!
From The Cigar Adviser:
"I recently smoked some cigars from 1954. That’s 39 years. I’ve heard of people smoking even older cigars. In general, cigars that old take on some very specific flavors and aromas, usually as a result of being stored in wooden boxes. But I’ve also had some 30-year-old cigars that were as fresh and moist as if they’d come from the factory within the previous couple of years. That may be an illusion; there’s no way a 30-year-old cigar will have the same characteristics as when it was made. The cigar won’t necessarily be worse or better, just different. In my personal experience, I’ve found the older, properly aged cigars are milder and more elegant.
If there’s a ‘right’ answer to your question, it is probably that a cigar can be stored for a very long time if it rests in the proper humidity (70 to 72 percent) at the proper temperature (65 to 70°F)."
(Found here.)
It depends on how the cigars have been stored.
If properly stored and humidified cigars are supposed to get better with age.
There was a Wall Street Journal story in the mid-90’s about a gentleman in Ireland who ordered several barrals of cigars in the 1840’s. The barrals were stored in the basement.
Long story short…that boggy area of Ireland had the perfect atmosphere for storing cigars. The humidity was constant and proper. And the current owner (a relative) had something great…the bill of sale confirming the date of sale and identifying those cigars.
You were looking at properly stored cigars that were over 150 years old.
Christie’s estimated a sale price of well over a million dollars.
edit…that’s for the whole lot, not per cigar. Don’t we wish?
Okay, in your case the boxes were closed but not sealed. Not the end of the world…remember the atmosphere in Ireland? How’s the humidity at your place?
There may be a code of some sort on the back of the boxes. I’m unsure (without checking my references) which, if any, code was used pre-revolution, so I won’t try to explain any of them here. Other than that, sometimes the stamps burned into the wood can help to establish a ballpark date.
What is on the back of the boxes? And what cigars are we talking about (for example, Bolivar Royal Coronas, Montecristo No. 2, Partagas Petit Coronas, etc.)?
I think that’s illegal in some states.
[* – d & r – *]
Smithers, pass me the cod. The frozen cod.
I’ll look next time I visit, but for what in particular should I be looking?
They were stored in an unheated room in a 19th century house.
Any stamps burned ino the wood, any stamps inked on the wood; those sorts of things. There will be something put on the plain wood on the bottom of the box, and depending on the shape/names/languages/codes used on these stamps, we can establish either a date, a range of dates, or at least whether the cigars are (or are not) pre-revolutionary. For example, the burned-in name “Cubatabaco” and an inked code stamp (which would look something like “TLP–NNSC”) will definitely be post-revolutionary; the burned-in words “Made in Havana Cuba” will likely be pre-revolutionary. There may also be such things stamped on the bottom of the box as as “Hecho a Mano,” “Made by Hand,” and so on that can be checked against private or government manufacturers’ known stamping habits for certain times.
There is a lot more to these stamps and codes than I can put here, but when you can, have a look for such markings and let us know.