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PADRON THROUGH THE ROOF!

Plus: Q&A on Cuban factory box codes

Los Angeles, March 18 – Like a rocket breaking through the atmosphere on its way to outer space, prices for Padron 1926 Serie 40th Anniversary cigars have left the earth.

Famous Smoke Shop’s Cigar Auctioneer site ran a seven-day auction on a full box of 40 Padron 40ths in the specially-carved humidor that ended late Monday evening. They had sold one box previously for $2,055 (average of $51.38 per cigar, discounting the humidor) and another piecemeal, one cigar at a time. This auction broke all records.

A total of 62 bids were received over the auction period and two bidders dueled it out over the final couple of days. At the end, a buyer from Lubbock, Texas paid an astonishing $3,530 for the box and cigars, more than double the suggested retail price of $1,600.

Discounting the humidor – as most collectors do – the price per cigar was an out-of-this-world $88.25! Holy cow!

It’s the latest chapter in the overheated world of the Padron 40th Anniversary cigar market. The 6 1/2-inch by 54-ring torpedo was introduced in 2004 and has become the hottest cigar on the market since last fall.

Although the buyer’s name is unknown, an interesting question is whether the cigars will ever be smoked, or if the cigars will remain in-box and preserved for a future sale like wine. This kind of speculative buying is common among the cigar collectors of Hong Kong, who are primarily interested in Cuban cigars. But perhaps the wide notoriety of big-money bids for items like the Padron 40th Anniversary humidors and the Prometheus-produced $10,000 Fuente Fuente Opus X humidors may awake interest among collectors worldwide for the top Dominican, Honduran and Nicaraguan brands, right alongside those from Havana.

Q & A:
We get questions, like this one from P.C. in Huntington Beach, California:

How can I find out what factories have rolled what [Cuban] cigars? Do they rotate enough that it is too difficult to figure out? I'm wondering the significance of the factory code on the bottom of Cuban cigar boxes if I cannot find out what factories have rolled certain cigars. For instance, did the Jose Marti factory (LLN) roll the Partagas Serie D no. 1 2004 L.E.?

Also, are some factory’s rollers better than others, making it "better" to buy a cigar rolled in one place vs. another?

You’ve hit on a hot topic with Havanophiles. Here’s the current story, summarized from our newly-published Perelman’s Pocket Cyclopedia of Havana Cigars (available through our on-line store above):

• For years after nationalization, no factory-identification codes were stamped on boxes of cigars exported from Cuba. This changed in 1985 when both date and factory codes were added, leading to a frenzy among enthusiasts to break the codes and try to buy from their favorite factories.

• The first set of codes ran from 1985 through 1998, a second set was adopted in 1998 and lasted into 2000, a third set came in in 2000 and the newest code program in 2003.

• The 1985, 1998 and 2000 factory codes were static, but in 2003, the Cubans adopted a set of codes which allows for continuous changes to the factory code while the date code was simplified in 2000 to make it easy to understand for both the trade and for consumers.

• Habanos S.A. executives were unhappy with the level of consumer interest in the factory codes, which they viewed primarily as a quality-control measure to be able to track which factory produced a specific box. Moreover, because of the production limitations of most of the factories, they did not want consumers passing over a box of Montecristo No. 5 (petit coronas) made in an outlying factory in the Holguin or Sancti Spiritus provinces instead of at the Jose Marti (H. Upmann) factory in Havana (pictured) where the Montecristo brand was produced prior to nationalization.

There was something to fear for the Cubans as quality ebbed in the mid-to-late 1990s and connoisseurs became quite picky about where cigars were produced, expecting that “home brands” like H. Upmann and Montecristo from the H. Upmann factory or Partagas and Ramon Allones from the Partagas factory would be of better quality.

• The turning point in the box code dialogue came in 2000, when Altadis S.A. purchased half of Habanos S.A. and made a major investment in the infrastructure of the Cuban cigar industry. Since that time, quality and consistency have improved and the Cubans have lowered production to around 120 million cigars a year, after predicting export totals of as much as 250 million in 1998.

Now, the quality of all Cuban production is up and there’s much less difference between one factory’s quality and another. The box code remains, for the Cubans, a quality-control device, but devoted smokers are reporting better aging, consistency and rolling in all cigars exported from Cuba.

For now, P.C., smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. They should be fine, no matter what factory they come from.

Everything at Once with our March Combo Offer!
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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