How sad.
How to Spot Fake Cuban Cigars Is my Cuban cigar real or fake? Dimensins are totally different. So what can you do? Now, Ive heard from some that the cuo is not necessarily on all boxes, but Id play it safe and stay away if its not present along with the Habanos, S.A., Hecho en Cuba, and Totalmente a mano on the bottom. Smokes great. That said, most leaves will still have to be long as the cigar length. First, the feel and look of the cigar. Touching and squeezing gently the cigar, you can notice if the construction is good or has some defects. The logo is also repeated on the holographic edges several times. This guide will help you tell fake Cuban cigars from the real thing. Find out if your Cuban Bolivaris real or fake. Cigar documents This is a Guide on How to Spot a Fake Cuban Cigar: Here is a video of the dissection of a better quality fake Cohiba: . The authentic and highly desirable smokes use Cuba grown tobacco and are rolled by hand on the island in a process that involves over 500 . To avoid falling victim to a fake Cuban cigar, there are a number of steps to take. Here are the keys: Real Cuban cigars are packed in boxes marked with the Habanos seal in the upper-right corner. pecial edition can be either a Limited Edition, or a Regional Edition. Additionally, the box is very difficult to replicate. All Rights Reserved. There are enough proven stores there and you know what you get for still a fair price. Weve seen several fake Cohibas made in this method. Otherwise this analysis will be useful only to get a feedback on the quality of the tobacco used, long story short, if the cigar is good or not. Keep in mind that Edicin Limitada cigars are exceedingly rare. You just have to know what a real Cuban cigar looks and tastes like in order to tell. What must always be there is a small piece of paper written on transparent tissue paper showing the correct method of preservation. That $100 Rolex is fake. Complicating things further, Cohiba gained a new family member in 2006, the Cohiba Behike. That also makes the Cohiba Behike one of the most widely counterfeited cigars in the world. Just bought a box of phony Montecristo No. Price So, clue. You should be able to detect the oily shimmer on the wrapper. A mounted head is no guarantee of a real Cuban cigar, as other producers make cigars this way as well, but the lack of one guarantees a fake. Usually the counterfeit cigars are copies of the most expensive Cuban cigars, and the real ones, are made with a higher level of control. Image 1: the color of the box is different from the standard color of Cohiba. This seal should be accompanied by another seal if the cigar box is a special edition. How can it be a fake?. If youre going to buy Cuban cigars, you need to learn how to tell the difference between real vs. fake. One of the easiest ways to tell if you are dealing with a fake Cuban cigar is if its unbanded. At Cigar Aficionado, weve seen lazy counterfeiters sell boxes with labels in the box, not attached to the packaging. Real one is sharp and clear whereas fake one is blurry. As can be seen from the picture above, it is made up of codes. Unless youve actually smoked a good number ofgenuineCuban cigars its easy to be fooled, especially if the counterfeiter got everything right but the cigars. The dots soon became squares, and the words La Habana, Cuba appeared under the logo. G.K.), [] you getting ripped off are pretty damn high. Cuba releases three per year, and those releases are all documented on this website. The hologram is an important thing to check for because they are hard and expensive to copy. But enough about the hustle; lets get to the heart of how to spot fake Cuban cigars. A proper box of real Cubans will have a certain amount of symmetry. Pass. A well and intricately designed cigar band is often the most useful discouraging factor to counterfeiters. So is the 10 CUC Cohiba. I can see clearly now the lid is glass they're fake. Cuban cigars are quite expensive, especially in countries with a higher tobacco tax. Your access is restricted because of your age. 9. Required fields are marked *. Reading Time: 2 minutes Fresh cigar questions have arrived! A genuine box of Cuban cigars should haveallof the following five attributes: Not unlike counterfeit cigar bands, the bottom of the box may be missing some of this key information; it could have typos, and may even be printed with different fonts. The Fleur-de-lis. To the casual observer, they may look real, but if you take a few minutes to examine, youll start to see some blatant flows, especially with the more well-known and popular brands. Cuban wrappers tend to be naturally oily with a smooth, buttery appearance and entirely even in color.
How to spot counterfeit cigars in Cuba (and everywhere else, too) There are two ink-stamps on the bottom of Habanos boxes. J.A. 2s in Ensenada. JR Cigar Blog & Videos - Reviews, Lists & More. Cubans vs Non-Cubans: Are They Really Better Cigars? If the price sounds too good to be true, it probably is. The hologram barcode seal was intact, so I might just being paranoid? It had a sliding glass top. If the cigar burns white ash, thats a bad sign. And since at least then, the Cohiba has been counterfeited. It only features the HABANOS written. Since 2009, there has been a further change to ensure greater security. To help prevent this, in 2010 Habanos S.A. designed a new seal using watermarks, a super-strong adhesive, a hologram on the right side of the seal, and a bar code on the left. Does the box of cigars youre buying have a glass, Lucite or otherwise clear lid? If someone is trying to sell this box in your country for $ 100-200, or you fnid people selling it for $ 50 in Cuba (sellers on the street), the situation is quite clear: in both cases, an alarm must sound in your mind. This seal is applied to the top right of the box, and is affixed before the box leaves the factory. 8. The Behikes band has the holographic Indian head logos and the boxes with the words Behike and Cohiba repeat in the gold foil box to form a checkerboard grid. Finally, as with every real Cuban cigar, if youre offered a cigar that is inside a cellophane sleeve, its not an authentic Cuban cigar. produced by the US company General Cigar from non-Cuban tobacco and has no affiliation of any sort with the real Cuban Cohiba. These, obviously fake, Cubans are hardly the main problem, as some fake Cubans come with counterfeit bands and even in counterfeit boxes. Source: http://www.habanos.com/en/el-mundo-del-habano/signos-de-distincion/. Fake cigars sometimes trick people by being too expensive or too cheap. The bands have several minor marks that you can identify. This steps below can be followed to understand if you are dealing with a counterfeit product: 1. Not all fake cigars deliver a bad smoke indeed! Then, in 1994, another stamp made its way to the cigar boxes. Pricing can also be a tip-off to spotting fake Cuban cigars. The fact is, the Cuban cigar industry doesnt make cigar boxes with glass or even clear plastic tops. This helps you checking their filling. Furthermore, the serial code is no longer placed in the lower and central part of the seal, but it is now on the left, parallel to and opposite to the hologram. So, if you got a guy outside your Havana hotel whispering a lower price to you, ignore him. A burning Cuban cigar typically produces a gray ash. It had a sliding glass top. In the latter case, sellers tell people they got a great deal for X reason and that is why their prices are so low. The streets are filled with hustlers looking for a mark to whom they can sell a box of Cubans for way below retail. Dupont Collection Pays Homage To Paris, 2022 Big Smoke Las Vegas Seminars: Blend Ambitions With Dewars And . * Offers valid while supplies last. I believe I may have been had. Reading Time: 3 minutes Alec Bradley Cigars will have a new home under a pending acquisition agreement with Scandinavian Tobacco Group to the tune of over $72 million. Reply. Despite the fact that the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Honduras manufacture most of the worlds bestcigarsthese days, cigar smokers still jump at the chance to buy Cubans. Furthermore, since the end of 2010, the seal has undergone a slight change: the ends of the seal are no longer rounded, but have a sharp oblique cut. 2 or Partags Serie D No. A serial code was added to the seal and the seal itself has a reaction if directly exposed to ultraviolet light. If the box looks flimsy or the cigars inside are different sizes or colors, you are probably dealing with a fake Cuban cigar. According to the Border Chief, these statistics are for the whole of the U.S border patrol, including the southern, northern and coastal borders. It is a good starting point to quickly understand how the counterfeit cigar boxes look like. Your fugazi alarm should be ringing loudly. c/o Counterfeit Cigars
This verification is one of the most accurate, and in many cases we will realize that the box is counterfeit precisely from this. It often look like it has been badly printed. So, if any one of these things is off, your Behikes are off too. Genuine Cuban Cohiba Esplendidos, when you can find them, sell for about 23 CUC. Check out Cigar Aficionado's newsletters, bringing you our latest ratings & reviews, cigar news and our guide to the good life. . The first, the white boxes on the main label continue under the gold band around the outside; and the second thing I noticed was a number (CHB056) on the back of each cigar label. Instead, check out our primer below for some simple, straightforward tips on what to look for to avoid imitation Cuban cigars. So get to know the relative prices on the top Cuban brands, especially the ones that are most often counterfeited like Cohiba Edicin Limitadas, Cohiba Behikes, Montecristo No.2s, and Partagas Serie D No.4s, among others. Heres another problem. The earliest versions feature rows of white dots on a black background over the word Cohiba, with a yellow stripe at the bottom. Originally this green and white stamp came in three sizes: Large (~ 2 1/2 wide), Small (~1 1/4 wide), and Miniature (~ 13/16 wide). This guide will help you tell fake Cuban cigars from the real thing. Internal seals In this video I talk about some of the telltale signs of fake Cuban cigars and how to spot them!Cigar Aficionado guide: https://www.cigaraficionado.com/artic. If someone tries to sell you a $300 box of Cubans for $50 or even $100, odds are theyre not the genuine article. Cohibas are the most counterfeited of all the Cuban brands, but if you know what you are looking for, they are the easiest to spot. To help prevent this, in 2010 Habanos S.A. designed a new seal using watermarks, a super-strong adhesive, a hologram on the right side of the seal, and a bar code on the left. Your email address will not be published. The system started in 2000 with 00, then 01 and so on. A real Cuban cigar tends to burn with a gray ash, or one that takes on a salt-and-pepper look. That said, a box of 25 Esplendidos has a retails price of around $ 750 (in Cuba $ 500). This is the familiar seal you see on all boxes of handmade cigars from Central America. The Habanos seal, on the top right as the box lays flat, had a DOP designation added in 2012. In Cuba it is around $ 20. OK, youre not near an official LCDH. The 'made in Cuba' stamp is on the left. Let us be the judge. No ridges or collars. To be clear, no Cuban cigar comes in a package with a glass or plastic top. By cutting the cigar open and unrolling the leaves, it will be fairly simple to see if the leaves used are whole or not. One good clue isembossing. Reading Time: 5 minutes SWEET: see Garys Deadwood Yummy Bitches Sweet Jane cigar review! The brand is known for its canary yellow coloring and famous white-and-black checkboard band. This mechanism always comes with a logo on top. This head-within-head effect is a telling sign that the band is authentic. A great example of how Cuba has dealt with preventing the counterfeiting of bands can be found on the Cohiba Behike cigars. Cohibas, such as the Edicion Limitadas or Behikes are even easier to spot. For decades, there has been a market for counterfeitCuban cigars. Cellophane, however, is not the only indication that a Cuban cigar is fake. It was introduced in 1994 and has been changed 3 times. Each had the name Cohiba, the vitola, or size of the cigar, and often the number of cigars packed in each box. To the left, you should see a green label that is the Cuban guarantee, along with a holographic image on the side of the label. In 2009, a hologram was added on the right side and the placement of the serial code was moved. For example, the popular Cuban brands like Cohiba, Partagas, Punch, Hoyo de Monterrey, Romeo y Julieta, Montecristo, et al., all feature the Habanos S.A. seal on the top right-hand corner of the box. Now, about that box of fake Arturo Fuente cigars. Keep in mind that Cohiba is one of the most counterfeited brands in the world. And you need to do that BEFORE you start shopping.
Cuba's Counterfeit Cigars: Know your Fakes - Havana Times The plastic wrapper acts as a barrier that slows down moisture exchange and protects the cigar from potential damage or contamination. The Habanos Seal should always be present on the upper left-hand side of your cigar box, approximately 3 to 6 mm from the edge. This steps below can be followed to understand if you are dealing with a counterfeit product: 1. No, seriously. In counterfeit cigars, filling is usually very low. Here is an example to better understand the thing. These days, the best counterfeiters make facsimiles of Cuban cigar bands and put them in facsimile Cuban cigar boxes and sell them to an unsuspecting tourist outside the hotel. When it comes to Cuban cigarsespecially Cohibasthere are no discounts.