spotting fakes

[ashmaiz]

someone gave me a box of siglo vi, but the box had no seals or date and code stamps. the person (who i know) gave me a reason why it was like this, he said he took them out of the box to put them in his humidor and when he decided to give them to me, he put them in some other old unstamped siglo vi box he had lying around. under normal circumstances i would believe him but there is also another few issues. one, all the bands are loose and move freely. two, i've heard these are supposed to be great cigars, however the few that i've had were good, but deffinately not amazing. i was wondering if there was some way, to determine whether or not these are fakes based on the cigar alone and not the packaging (or should i take them to a cigar store and find out from them. i think the loose bands and the fact that they are little on the hard side might be to my humidity issues. i have the whole box in a plastic box with a humidifier (as opposed to a purpose built humidor).

[randomhero1090]

Counting down...

5) Bands can be loose depending on humidity. Cigar shrinks, band becomes loose.

4) Wrappers should be very smooth, with very little if NO imperfections.

3) Filler should be BUNCHED, not all rolled.

2) Do they have that classic Cohiba Siglo flavor?

and #1...

they GAVE you a box? I mean, GAVE? Any particular reason? That's quite the gift....if you know where I am going.

[TonyV]

Can you post a picture of a few of the cigars?? A box of VI's would be an expensive gift,then again you might have a generous friend.I've smoked a fair amount of siglo vi's

all were better than just okay cigars.I would go with the adage: if something seems to good to be true....Hope i'm wrong though and if you say they're pretty good well then at the least you got a box of pretty good cigars as a gift..

[ashmaiz]

Counting down...

5) Bands can be loose depending on humidity. Cigar shrinks, band becomes loose.

4) Wrappers should be very smooth, with very little if NO imperfections.

3) Filler should be BUNCHED, not all rolled.

2) Do they have that classic Cohiba Siglo flavor?

and #1...

they GAVE you a box? I mean, GAVE? Any particular reason? That's quite the gift....if you know where I am going.

hte person that gave me the cigars, i had done some fundraising for his organization.

[cigcars]

In a recent issue of one of the newest Cigar magazines (CA or Smoke, etc.) there's an article showing pics of authentics & fakes and there's a real box of Behikes and fake next to it. One of my buddies proudly showed me a box of Behikes that was exactly the make-up of the fake. They were 52's. I figured what the hey, he didn't want $50 bucks for it, so I got one. Okay flavor for the first 5 puffs...then it died to nuthin' flavor. I was curious, okay!?

[laficion]

Some close up Pics. of the cap and head & foot would give us a better Idea and the band also,

but that's about it.

The only way would be to smoke it and then ......................... ?

[Cohiba Stevie]

Post pics and i will tell you, take pics of the bands along with the bunch together, also take a pic of three cigars side by side, a pic of the box would also be helpful.

I smell fakes to be honest though.

[ashmaiz]

if they are fakes, are they safe to smoke? (if they taste okay of course)

[Cohiba Stevie]

If they prove to be fakes, ultimatley you cannot prove where they came from or what they contain. So realistically its up to yourself to smoke them at your own risk, if you do your own research you will find that fake habanos have shown to have some pretty nasty stuff in them so be careful mate.

[ashmaiz]

i have had a few of them and they didnt seem bad. they were ok, but not amazing. if they were ok, what are the chances that they are dangerous (assuming they are indeed fake).