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

CAN YOU SAY 308 MILLION?!

Plus: Jarhead alert – H. Upmann Vintage Cameroon office jars on special at J-R

Los Angeles, March 1 – It’s official. Cigar Boom II is on.

The Cigar Association of America’s final figures for imports and exports for 2004 was released last week and it showed a stunning year-end total of 307,935,000 cigars, the most since the final “Boom” year of 1998.

In fact, excepting the crazed years of 1997 (417.8 million imports) and 1998 (334.6 million), imports have now risen for nine years in a row and an already strong market in 2003 saw growth of 12.3% to surpass the 300 million level.

The big players are, of course, the Dominican Republic (172.5 million) with 56% of the import total, followed by Honduras (83.4 million) with 27.1% and Nicaragua (47.9 million) at 15.6%. Together, they have 98.7% of the market. Only Mexico (1.8) and Indonesia (1.5) had imports of more than a million cigars with only minor amounts from the Canary Islands, Jamaica, Panama and the Philippines.

Compared with the Cigar Boom years of 1997 and 1998, Mexico and Jamaica have taken the hardest hit. Mexican imports reached 25.2 million in 1997 and 5.9 million in 1998, but few Mexican-made brands other than Te-Amo can even find shelf space in most smokeshops.

For Jamaica, the closure of the Royal Jamaica factory in Maypen nearly signaled the end of production in one of the Caribbean’s most famous cigar nations. Some 23.3 million cigars were imported from Jamaica as late as 1998. But last year, only 23,000 cigars made it here, primarily from Barrington House Premium Cigars under the brand names Guaranteed Jamaica, Fundadores and Pride of Jamaica. They’re very good cigars, but about all that is left in Jamaica today.

Prices are remaining stable while imports have risen. Compared to 2003, the declared value per 1,000 cigars imported rose only slightly from the Dominican Republic (+1.9%) from 92.8 cents per cigar to 94.5 cents. Imports from Honduras and Nicaragua actually declined, to 74.1 cents a cigar (-0.3%) and 51.8 cents (-1.8%), respectively.

Including both handmade and machine-made cigars, 23 countries exported cigars to the U.S. in 2004 including exotic production from Andorra (105,000 cigars), Italy (23,000) and Venezuela (5,000).

What about U.S. exports? Mostly machine-made, U.S. large-cigar exports for 2004 totaled 171.5 million, up a remarkable 31.7% over 2003. Our biggest markets included Canada at 38.1 million, China at 25.2 million and Turkey, 17.8 million. That’s a lot of Swisher Sweets, folks.

Lew has lost it:
We went wild last month when Holt’s Cigar Company offered the elegant H. Upmann Vintage Cameroon office jars, cigars included, for just $80 each. They were gone by the time we got our catalog here on the West Coast!

Now, Lew Rothman at J-R Cigars has decided to empty his inventory of these jars, as he writes:

“We didn’t sell anywhere near the number of jars we thought we would, and we’re sitting on hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of them.” So, he’s clearing them out and has priced them accordingly:

• Vintage Cameroon Coronas (5 1/2 inches by 44 ring), jar of 25 for $70.00!

• Vintage Cameroon Lonsdales (6 5/8 x 44), jar of 25 for $75.00!

• Vintage Cameroon Robustos (5 x 52), jar of 25 for $75.00!

• Vintage Cameroon Toros (6 x 54), jar of 25 for $80.00!

• Vintage Cameroon Belicosos (6 1/8 x 52), jar of 25 for $85.00!

That’s for the elegant jar and the 25 cigars, which were so good they ranked no. 8 on our list of the best full-bodied cigars available in the U.S. This version of H. Upmann offers a soft, accessible, caramelized flavor that fills the mouth and relaxes you from the first puff. At this price, the cigars alone would be a steal, but with the jar, it’s no sin to help out of his inventory problem and help yourself to some wonderful cigars and a jar which makes a wonderful desk humidor . . . or a perfect jar for popcorn while watching movies with your family!

Everything at Once with our March Combo Offer!
Okay, we heard you! Here’s our special for the month of March, offering everything we have in one big package at 28% off! You get (drum roll . . .):

• A one-year subscription to our value-packed CigarWire and

• A copy of our 600-page Perelman’s Pocket Cyclopedia of Cigars for 2005 and

• A copy of our third edition Perelman’s Pocket Cyclopedia of Havana Cigars!

That’s normally a $54.90 value with shipping, but we’re offering all of this for a special, discounted price of just $39.99 through the end of this month only.

Your subscription will also include our “Week in Review” newsletter sent each Thursday with a summary of our top stories of the week!
~ Rich Perelman

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