Clear Havana Fakes

[gotham-cigar-museum]

I have seen many fake clear Havana cigars in my day, interesting enough even in some of the antique collecting books the errors are reproduced.

Here is in my opinion, a fake jar of clear Havana Cigars!

Question: Why do I suspect them to be fake?
Answer: There is no tax stamp on the jar, there are no other labels other than the National League (desirable) label on the front (easy to glue on a nice label), cigars are not banded, appear to be machine made and have a candela wrapper all very suspicious since they appear to post-date the jar itself.

 

[Headbanger]

The end shot looks like a food snack, not a cigar. Those are butt ugly makes me think they are fakes.

What is written on the bottom of the glass? I can not spin my head round enough to get everything.

 

[Mitch]

National Cigar Museum has a fake reference page on their site that shows the same Jar and other tins and such.

http://www.cigarhistory.info/Frauds-Fakes-Fantasies/Frauds-Fakes-Fantasies.html


The more I learn, the more suspicios I get about some of what I see.
The seller, on Ebad, below has a bunch of clear Havan's at auction, but not a one has a tax stamp or any other label I can see. No picture of the bottom of the box to show the tax class either. Nick, I don't want to put you on the spot, so don't comment if you don't want to, but does this seem odd?

http://cgi.ebay.com/RARE-1957-Robt-...5|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318|301:1|293:1|294:50

 

[Moro]

So a ~50 year old candela wrapper would still look like that?

 

[Jfire]

Mitch what makes me say "Um" is were they using poly boxes way back then. I'm not old enough but man that makes me :scratchhe .

 

[Mitch]

Mitch what makes me say "Um" is were they using poly boxes way back then. I'm not old enough but man that makes me :scratchhe .

I'm not sure that the box by itself scares me. If it had a tax stamp on it, and printing on the bottom of the box that fit the period, I could consider it, but the lack of those things is a huge red flag to me. The Celo is yellow and I'm just starting to learn this stuff and don't trust my knowledge, but combined with other auctions like the tin that looks brand new and not a single other auction having the tax stamps, makes we stay away from this one.

 

[smokingIsh]

plus, notice that all the other boxes are also full and stated from a private humidor. Why would you want to purposely age a cigar for 50 years? I mean it is cool to smoke one and all, but would not buy a box and put it back for 50 years on purpose.

 

[hdroadglide]

what kind of lengths do you have to go to in order to fake old cigars?

 

[Mitch]

what kind of lengths do you have to go to in order to fake old cigars?

I'm not sure, but a box can sell for several hundred dollars so the motive is there.

I'm more suspicious of someone trying to pass off something as older than it really is or of higher quality than it really is, than a total fake.

For example the embargo ended cuban tobacco in 1962, but the cigar factories in the US makeing clear havan's didn't close there doors, the made what they could with what they had. So a White Owl cigar from the mid 50's was a good quality cigar made with cuban grown tobacco. A White Owl from the mid 70's is a machine made dime store cigar made from much lower quality of tobbaco and percieved by collectors and smokers to be far less valuable. So if you can get a box of yellow cello 70's White Owls for 25 and sell them off as clear havana's you make good money. Or put some obviously old cigars but low value cigars into a Jar with a premium label on it and pass them off as Partagas pre embargo's instead of cheap unbanded crud from the 80's.

This is why I think packaging with tax stamps and contents that fit the packaging perfectly is important. It's hard even with a box to tell the whole story, but loose cigars and vague packaging scares me.

Anyone with more experience want to comment, I'm guessing here and passing on the little second hand knowledge I have, but that's it.

 

[cigarguy71]

Thanks for the info Nick and Mitch.

 

[hdroadglide]

Thanks for the info Nick and Mitch.

ditto!

guess the 1979 dutch masters i was going to send to alfonso arent' going to be very special!:grinFU:

 

[Hardcore]

Thank for all of the info guys!

 

[gotham-cigar-museum]

Ok,

The topic of fake clear havana cigars is an interesting one........................for many years there were two or three of us VCH BOTL's who collected vintage clears and compared notes, there were only a few reference books on the subject therefore there was a lot of learn by your mistakes going on.............yah pays yah dough and yah takes yah chances!

Now back to the specific question as to why there are no tax stamps on some of those boxes listed on *bay..................the last year that the tax stamp was used was 1955.............therefore if you see a blue tax stamp taht says Series of 125 it means that the cigars were made in 1955 (add 25 to 1930).

The cigars listed *bay are legit they were just manufactured AFTER 1955.

Now, the problem with some of those cigars that were made after 1955 is that they started to use HTL....................homogenized tobacco leaf.......there is lots of waste in cigar manufacturing so why not recycle by making a man made wrapper called HTL.

 

[gibbleguts]

Mitch I think only Nick may know more about clear havana's then you so I doubt any of the resy of us will be any help. That said the only clear havana's I have bought or smoked came from Nick so I will continue that way and dodge the fakes the easy way and only buy from reputable retailers. I am sure that good clear havanas can be found other ways but why worry about it when I can get them from someone I trust.

 

[gotham-cigar-museum]

Here is an interesting you tube video about opening a "70 year old cigar box".

Notice the blue tax stamp on the left which means that the cigar was imported from Cuba into the USA and it tells me that tis box was from the 1940's or 1950's therefore their dating is off by a few years but what a nice box![ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzvDVXHec1k"]YouTube - The Siglo 4 smoke 70 yr old Cuban cigars[/ame]

 

[cba191]

the guy nees to take a class on how to use a knife. :lookaroun

 

[gotham-cigar-museum]

I will always be thankful to Mitch for pulling me to this board, he has learned a ton since he first discovered clear havana cigars just a short while ago, way to go Mitch!

 

[Mitch]

Mitch I think only Nick may know more about clear havana's then you so I doubt any of the resy of us will be any help. That said the only clear havana's I have bought or smoked came from Nick so I will continue that way and dodge the fakes the easy way and only buy from reputable retailers. I am sure that good clear havanas can be found other ways but why worry about it when I can get them from someone I trust.

you give me way too much credit, Nick is the man though, you are correct there.

 

[openendstraight]

The end shot looks like a food snack, not a cigar. Those are butt ugly makes me think they are fakes.

What is written on the bottom of the glass? I can not spin my head round enough to get everything.

It says

FACTORY # 64 DISTRICT OF N.C.

 

[gotham-cigar-museum]

Very good detective work! Every genuine jar of clear havana cigars will have the factory & state of manufacture in raised lettering on the bottom.
The BIG question is were the green iguana cigars INSIDE the jar made at that factory!