Real Or Fake?

[Big Dogg]

OK, so I was recently talking to a chap I work with about my recently re-found interest in cigars and he mentioned that he has some cigars that he brought back from Cuba while on his honeymoon a couple of years ago. I asked about a humidor etc. and he said they were just in their original boxes, but kept in a dark humid area in the house. I told him that they were likely very dry and unsmokeable, but that he could try a few things to bring them back to reasonable condition. Anywho, I asked him what cigars they were and if he'd be interested in selling me a few. They were Cohiba Esplendidos (surprise surprise) and Monte No 4s.

He said he bought them from the cigar shop in his hotel (Sandal hotel or something). I bought a few from him, but I didn't pay a lot for them and I bought them knowing full well that there's a good chance they are fake and/or I may never be able to recover them to smokeable condition, but would love your opinion. I did have a good look online to see the difference between real & fake and the Cohibas look real, going by the tell-tale signs:
-The bands on the Cohibas are all embossed and 'shiny' gold (although a little faded now, as you'll see in the pics
-The little Habanos info sheet inside has the big leaf symbol, in both boxes (as opposed to the smaller one seen on a lot of fakes)
-The corner cut out on the sheet of cedar in the box was round, rather than straight, in both boxes
-The Cuban label on the box didn't photo well, but it does look genuine on both boxes
-The bands on the Montes are embossed

I don't have any pics of the Cohiba box because he kept that to put his remaining cigars into. The box that the Cohibas are in, in the pics below isn't the Cohiba box.

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[Stevieboy]

I don't think 2001 Montes would have the newer shiny bands. I'm sure they're more recent?

[PeeJay]

Try this website, I used it today and its very good

http://www.habanos.com/Sellos/

But if you got them cheap and they smoke well it matters not unless you try to sell them on

[Stevieboy]

I just checked Trevor's site and the shiny Monte band was introduced in 2006

[TJCoro]

Golden Eye!

I just checked Trevor's site and the shiny Monte band was introduced in 2006

Good Catch, se?or stevietheboy. The predecessor bands were a papery, dull brown.

Perro, el Perro

Haha! Sorta' reminds me of a box of Cohiba Sublimes I once saw with the wrong warranty seal - the seal was a few years newer than the box date.

[butternutsquashpie]

I was reading the precursor to the pictures, and everything about the box seemed well. round cut is normally a great sign. so is a box stamp. However:

Stevie is right that the bands don't match the box codes. I'm so tearjerkingly lazy right now so i'll attach photos later of old Monte bands vs new Monte bands. Those are definitely the new bands: post '07s. There's also a small problem that i'll illustrate with the Esplendido bands.

[PeeJay]

I was reading the precursor to the pictures, and everything about the box seemed well. round cut is normally a great sign. so is a box stamp. However:

Stevie is right that the bands don't match the box codes. I'm so tearjerkingly lazy right now so i'll attach photos later of old Monte bands vs new Monte bands. Those are definitely the new bands: post '07s. There's also a small problem that i'll illustrate with the Esplendido bands.

You're a bloody slow reader, that was five hours between posts!

[butternutsquashpie]

Ugh... you have people making me get up to get to my drawers... HUMIDOR DRAWERS. Not the undies...
Then you have PeeJay calling me slow


Anyways, here y'are, Big Dogg.
There's the contrast between a '12 Montecristo band with an '04 Montecristo band. It should look like the 04 if those cigars truly belonged to that brand. The wrapper also looks water damaged on your MC 4s. May be water damage, may just be subordinate leaves... In all the cases i've seen, it's the latter. Which signifies a fake wrapper, thus: fake cigar.

Take a look at my Esplendido band as well. The clearance between the black, handwriting font that says Habana, Cuba is closer to the bottom of the band than yours. Your seems to have at least half a cm of clearance from the bottom whilst mine has 0.2 cm of clearance.

If anyone, showed me these cigars, i'd probably tell them that they're fake...



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[cigarmo]

Fake but who cares smoke them if there smokable

[butternutsquashpie]

Fake but who cares smoke them if there smokable

will x2 on this AFTER cutting them over.
if it's long filler, it's worth the smoke. i've had mates who've dissected them to find things like string, hair, and bits of plastic in it before.......

[Big Dogg]

Thanks for all the replies. I had actually came across that page before with the different Monte bands on it, so when I got these yesterday, I knew they couldn't be '01s, based on the newer looking band.

Butter, I see your point about the text on the band. That was 1 of the things I looked for when I was checking these out. Though the pics I had seen of fakes had a much bigger gap below the text than these do, so I thought they may have been genuine.

Anyways, to get them to a smokeable condition, am I best just leaving them in the humidor, separate to my other cigars? Or is it better to use a tupperwear box with a humidifier or small glass of water or something inside?

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[cigarmo]

Are they really dry?

[butternutsquashpie]

Anyways, to get them to a smokeable condition, am I best just leaving them in the humidor, separate to my other cigars? Or is it better to use a tupperwear box with a humidifier or small glass of water or something inside?

never use a small dish of water... best to never use that, but as a last resort, i don't see why not.

get one of those water pillows of mini boveda packs that cost a pound at your local B&Ms. best to keep them separated and i still highly recommend dicing one up lengthwise to see what you're dealing with... don't wanna be smoking hair, now do you?

Pinch the foot of the cigar right now and if it's rock hard, toss them in a ziplock bag with a hygrometer to see the rating. if it's too low, even a water pillow or boveda pack may pop the cigars... too rapid a change for the sticks are bad for them.
if they're squishable, the water pillows shant do them harm. stabilise them for a month or so.

[tommy]

These guys will tell you more but essentially Cuba seems to be the worst place to buy cigars unless you know your stuff and use a proper LCDH shop which are abundant in Cuba. The problem is that tourists represent a slow moving target for con men and locals who are simply trying to make a living the only way they know. I read somewhere that 80% of cigars coming back in suitcases are fake! While I don't necessarily subscribe to the statistical snapshots I think it illustrates the problem.
Its a shame they are not real but like the Jizzbag says open one of each up and check its tobacco then rehydrate and smoke them, you may just have a fake that's worth a smoke. If something seems too good to be true that's because it is but It may be fun to buy one of each of the genuine versions and do a comparison. Just for fun.

[butternutsquashpie]

Its a shame they are not real but like the Jizzbag says open one of each up and check its tobacco then rehydrate and smoke them, you may just have a fake that's worth a smoke.

with those nicknames, i'll soon be needing a theme song and my own R-Rated comic books!!

click my blog entries. i illustrate how to turn them into Cuban pipe tobacco. for some reason, it's netted 75 000 views. I have no idea why the population of Kiribait decided to read my shite blog... but it's a humbling thought...