Fugu

1. may be subject to debate and lying in the palate of the „beholder“ 2. undisputably 2021 JLP Brevas.

.... why I asked 😄😜

Well, one is due to crappy bunching, the other due to corrosion of the metal pigments on the band.

Well, I am the expert for all things gooey... Never seen, but just to offer a guess. Like you say, it looks like some form of condensate. Certainly not molten plastic, that appears intact. I could imagine either a (mild) temperature effect due to a higher contact resistance of the connector. Or an effect of electrical fields causing some inductivity which may locally attract some vaporised and somehow charged particles / aerosols, some sort of fogging. But no idea what it is or could be. How does it smell? Is it water soluble?Humi is fully cedar lined? Apart from that you should stop smoking inside your humidor. 😅 And, yes, do get in touch with Ray @PigFish

We are talking about hand-mades (mostly) for the period concerned.

Bliss

There had been rumours and announcements of price hikes seeping in from European distributors as well as PCC as early as February, AFAIR. Even topical here on the forum. While it’s unclear to me as to how detailed that info had been at that time, and whether it yet included a rough sketching of the the new Trinihiba-scheme, there certainly was talk as early as beginning of 2022.

Wrapper looks fantastic Was about to say the same. What a top-notch, splendid-looking wrapper they were using there. 👌

That statement brought up by the enquiry doesn’t make too much sense to me. Perhaps just a marketing ploy instated by certain manufacturers? „Clear Havanas“ were made with Cuban leaf in the US (Florida), often by Cuban immigrants. The tax burden of imported raw tobacco was lower than that of finished cigars at the time. Perhaps that particular Cuban leaf was (purportedly?) of lower quality than that used in a habano. And I suspect that could’ve actually been the case, indeed. But other than that, I have no clue what those other manufacturers were alluding to.

Same here. With friends - no change.

OSU 02 MdO2

Ok, perhaps let’s better put it „early rumours“ - some may have bought into it / saw an opportunity, some/most did not (just like most of us when we heard it). Well, I guess we’ll soon see how that all plays out.

Or they had info on it sooner. It will be interesting to see whether they’ll be able to restock. And any bet they will. They’ll be glad to be able to move all that stock once it breaks to the last ‘Heeba-whore that the emperor goes naked.

So true! I remember vividly when I saw that car the first time, my immediate thought being - what the heck were designers thinking? (or smoking....). 😂 It might all lie in the eye of the beholder, but in absolute terms a complete design fail. It hurts when looking at it.

It’s a sign already that the grey market is even holding Cohiba. If demand would sustain under the new pricing regime, grey market would dry out of Cohiba and Trinidad.