 Heavy auction action on Opus X and Padron 40th Anniversary cigars
Los Angeles, February 22 – We’ve talked about Montecristo a lot over the past couple of weeks. There seems to be no end for this line.
There’s the standard Montecristo range, introduced in 1995.
Then Consolidated Cigar (now Altadis USA) introduced the Montecristo Cigare des Arts and Montecristo Habana 2000 in 1998, the Serie V in 2001, Montecristo Platinum and the Serie VII in 2002 and Serie VI and Montecristo White Label in 2003.
In the meantime, J-R Cigars commissioned the more powerful Montecristo Peruvian Square Pressed and the smooth-as-silk Montecristo Club Cabinet Selection in 2000 and exotic Montecristo Afrique in 2003.
Last week, J-R sold a pile of specially-made Montecristo Mini-Belicosos, made for a corporate client, in one day.
So, what more could you want?
How about your own personalized Montecristos?
Yowsah!
And it’s available through your local tobacconist. Here’s how:
• The program is called “Montecristo Monogrammed,” arranged through any authorized Montecristo retailer.
• You order a minimum of 100 cigars (four boxes of 25), each of which is specially cedar-wrapped.
• Each box is wrapped in Navy Blue leather emblazoned with a gold Montecristo logo and your personalized information in up to three lines. Favorites include weddings, births and other life-cycle events, but businesses are also heavy buyers of this specialized treatment.
• Orders generally take from 4-8 weeks to be completed.
• Prices are reasonable and there’s a choice of sizes:
> Churchill (7 inches by 48 ring), at a suggested retail of $9.50 each (before any local taxes);
> Double Corona (6 1/4 x 50), $8.75 each;
> No. 1 (6 1/2 x 44), $7.50;
> No. 3 (5 1/2 x 44), $6.00 and
> Robusto (5 x 50), $8.25.
There’s also a personalized option on the Double Corona, which can be ordered individually (same minimum of 100), with your name on the individual cedar sleeve and each cigar presented in its own coffin-style box. It’s the ultimate in class, and just $10.75 each.
This kind of individual style was de rigeur in the glory days of Havana cigars before nationalization, as individuals and companies had their own bands on their favorite brands of cigars. The Romeo y Julieta factory was reported to have, at one time, some 20,000 different personalized bands in its catalog for its worldwide clientele.
Now, you can have your own Montecristo as well.
Hammer time:
Although not in the Padron 40th Anniversary class, there was good action on a box of 42 Fuente Fuente Opus X Belicoso XXX (a 4 5/8 x 49 torpedo). A total of 23 bids were entered and the winning entry ended at $630.01, a lot of money for a single box of cigars, but “only” $15 each, well below the current frenzy for Padrons.
In the meantime, a confused auction on eBay that ended on Friday (Feb. 18) saw a box of Padron Serie 1926 40th Anniversary cigars up for individual bid, although many buyers thought the entire box was up and 16 bids were retracted. In the end, there were two bids, at $31 and $32 and the Deerfield Beach, Florida seller ended the auction early to sell to their bidders.
Now, a full box – humidor and cigars – of the Padron Serie 1926 40th Anniversary model is up on eBay in an auction that will end on Sunday, February 27. It’s a re-listing of an auction that ended on Friday (Feb. 18) by an Atlanta seller who had a reserve above the final bid price of $1,901. As of this morning, there were 19 bids on the new listing and the price has reached $1,601. If you’ve got to have it, you can also “buy it now” for $2,300 ($57.50 a stick!), down from the buy-now price of $2,500 in the last listing. The retail price of the cigars and specially-carved humidor was $1,600.
The last full box of Padron 1926 40ths which did sell on eBay finished on February 14 and went for $1,825 from a seller in Webster, Texas.
~ Rich Perelman
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