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General Cigar sets promotion featuring Punch The character of Punch has been one of the endearing (?) aspects of the Punch brand over its more than a century and a half in production. Now, General Cigar is bringing the character and his acerbic wit into direct contact with smokers. Participating U.S. cigar retailers will be running a promotion during the month of July which “celebrates” the birthday of Mr. Punch, but gives presents to his fans. At each store, smokers will receive “birthday cards” which will include prize-winning notifications. First prize in each store is a box of 25 Punch cigars, either Magnums (5 1/4 inches by 54 ring) from the original line, or Punch Gran Puro Ranchos (5 1/2 x 54), plus a Punch-themed humidor with space for 100 cigars. There will be five second prizes per store, all of which will be a 10-count box of Punch, with 50 single-cigar third prizes per store. Cards which do have not a winner’s notice inside will get an earful from Mr. Punch with lines such as “It’s MY birthday – why should YOU get a gift?” During the promotion, retailers will also offer an assortment of special 10-count boxes of the best-selling Punch expressions, allowing consumers to sample an array of Punch cigars. Imperial Tobacco says rights issue almost sold out! The mammoth, almost $10 billion stock rights issue circulated by Imperial Tobacco to its existing shareholders sold out almost completely with 97.2 percent of all Imperial shareholder taking the company up on the offer. Imperial announced the results of its offer last Thursday. Share purchasers were able to obtain one new share for every two shares they already owned by paying about 67 percent of the current trading price. The cash raised will be used to pay for the acquisition of Altadis, S.A., completed earlier this year. The small amount of shares that were not subscribed (worth about $19 million) will be purchased by the four financial institutions which underwrote the share issue. Anti-tobacco group study notes the actual impact of the anti-smoking movement: A recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health gathered government-collected information that indicates that despite the enormous efforts made against tobacco between 2000 and 2007, the decrease in the number of packs of cigarettes sold is an amazing small 18 percent! News reports of the study indicated that pack sales dropped from 21.1 billion packs in 2000 to 17.4 billion packs in 2007. However, the researchers notes that sales of tobacco products other than cigarettes have increased during the same time period by what they claim is the “equivalent” of 1.1 million packs. Accepting the report at face value means that with all the work against tobacco, actual consumption of cigarettes, combined with the leading “alternatives” – moist snuff, roll-your-own tobacco and little cigars – has declined just 12.3 percent over that eight-year period to 87.7 percent of the 2000 level. Smoking isn’t going to be extinguished anytime soon. Large cigars were not identified as a major contributor, but the lead researcher again called for more taxes to combat “tobacco addiction,” noting that the tobacco alternatives cost less than cigarettes. The report was funded by an anti-smoking group called the American Legacy Foundation, which uses money provided by cigarette companies from their Master Settlement payments. ~ Rich Perelman CLASSIFIED ADVERTISINGCigar Humidors and Cigar Accessories at Humidor Vault! Your online cigar humidor source, with rock-bottom pricing and fantastic customer support!Like sports? Get news and commentary you won’t see in your morning newspaper at TheSportsExaminer.com! Join the examination! A limited amount of classified advertising is available in this space on a weekly basis. For details, call Pat Harris at (213) 365-7965 or inquire by email by clicking here. Have an opinion? You can send it using the “Comment” button below! Don’t forget to register for our drawing for free cigars and accessories! Just click on the “Register & Win” button above; enter today! Looking for a cigar party? Take a look at our exclusive list of hundreds of cigar events across the country, listed by state and date, only on CigarCyclopedia.com!
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Did you know?
“Although the preferred humidity setting for cigars is 70%, temperature control of 70-75 F is equally important.
