Cigars, Cigar Information and where to find Premium Cigars, Discounted Cigars and even Cheap Cigars

BUY NOW OR BE SORRY LATER!

Plus: Michigan couple will appeal fine of $5,250 for going to Cuba

Los Angeles, February 15 – Sometimes a good deal really is just too good to pass up.

While we were updating our our CigarWire Comparison Shopper spreadsheet, we noticed two nice buys from Abner’s World, but you’ll have to move fast:

• Arturo Fuente Canones, giant 8 1/2-inch by 52-ring cigars offered in boxes of 20, regularly $106.95 at Abner’s, now very reasonably priced at $99.95.

• Romeo y Julieta Churchills, elegant 7 x 50s in boxes of 25, lowered slightly from $74.50 to $72.25, the lowest we have seen in a while.

Why the hurry? If you need more incentive, consider:

• J-R Cigars quietly brought back its famed Ammo Cabinet with 105 Belinda cigars included and at its regular price of $99.95, sold out in just a couple of weeks!

• Holt’s Cigars put a nice ad for H. Upmann Vintage Cameroon Office Jars (one of our favorites!) on sale for the preposterous price of just $80.37 each (regularly $134.95 with 25 Belicosos!). Yup, gone in a flash. “The sizable quantity we had was quickly depleted with the release of our Winter 2005 catalog,” observed Holts’ webmaster Grant Thompson.

“Quickly depleted?” Ha! They were gone by the time their Winter catalog made it to the West Coast!

Moral of these stories: “Buy now, smoke later.”

More Monte for J-R:
As if they didn’t have enough Montecristo cigars to sell already – Montecristo, Montecristo Afrique, Montecristo Habana 2000, Montecristo Peruvian Square Pressed, Montecristo Platinum, Montecristo Serie V, Montecristo Serie VI, Montecristo Vintage ‘93 Club Cabinet and Montecristo White – J-R has added a new size to the regular Montecristo line.

It’s the Montecristo Maduro Figurado, a 5 3/4-inch by 46-ring torpedo with a mighty Connecticut Broadleaf wrapper and Dominican binder and filler. It’s specially-made for J-R and is the first of the regular Monte line with a maduro wrapper. J-R introduced maduro wrappers with great success on its special line of Montecristo Peruvian Square Pressed last year.

The new Maduro Figurado is offered in an elegant box of 20 for what appears to be a quite reasonable price of $84.95. We’ll let you know how reasonable after we smoke some!

Strong cigar results for Swedish Match:
Tobacco giant Swedish Match issued its full-year results for 2004, showing a slight decrease in overall operating income, but strong results in the cigar sector.

It owns General Cigar and its stable of brands and is the second-largest seller of cigars and cigarillos in the world, behind only Altadis S.A. of Spain/France. It continues to report management’s opinion that “cigars provide long-term growth opportunities.”

Sales of cigars increased by five percent to 3.17 billion Swedish Kronor ($452.8 million) with operating income jumping to 466 million SEK ($66.5 million), an increase of 19 percent! The end-of-year financial commentary noted “In local currency, sales increased by 13 percent.

“In the U.S., volumes for mass-market cigars increased, driven by product launches as well as a growing market, Sales also increased for premium cigars on the North American market. In Europe, volume development differed between countries and total volume was up modestly from year-ago levels.”

Although we concentrate on cigars, Swedish Match’s reach includes major interests in matches and lighters, smokeless tobacco and snuff and chewing tobacco as well. For the full year, total sales were 13 billion SEK ($1.86 billion), of which cigars made up 24.3%.

From the Cubador:
A U.S. Administrative Law Judge clubbed a devout Catholic couple who traveled to Cuba in 2001 for a vacation and to deliver medicines to nuns there with a fine of $5,250 for violating the U.S. trade embargo.

Administrative Law Judge Irwin Schroeder ordered Michael and Andrea McCarthy, of Port Huron, Michigan, to pay $5,250, down from the $9,750 amount that the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control requested. The couple refused a settlement of $2,000 because they wanted to challenge the law.

Now, they have indicated that they will appeal the administrative decision to the Treasury Department. If Treasury declines to hear the case, the McCarthys can appeal to Federal court.

Their attorney, Kurt Berggren of Ann Arbor, noted that the fine imposed on the McCarthys is inconsistent with the December dismissal of fines requested by OFAC in the case of three people from Milwaukee who visited Cuba.

OFAC told the Associated Press that typical fines for first-time offenders of the Cuban embargo are $7,500 per person. Stay tuned.
~ Rich Perelman

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