Are any 100% 'hand rolled' cigars still made?

[CaptainQuintero]

I've been wondering this for a while, are there any 100% hand rolled cigars? ie made without the use of moulds?

I remember watching some videos on youtube of the factory tours and special rollers would literally roll a cigars from a pile of leaf into the finished product, no moulds or presses in sight. Even the BHK use moulds today right?

Was there a time when the use of moulds was not common? Were they introduced to speed up production or because the number of rollers who were able to roll without the use of mould was too small?

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[hdryder]

There are some but I think they are Honduras cigars. J Feugo originals are made without the use of molds. They look much the same as a backwoods

Cheers

Richard

[canadianbeaver]

Mmmmmmmnn Backwoods. Espeshelly the frooty ones.

[Wil]

I've got a couple of robustos that were rolled without moulds by Dilia Hernandez (?) at sautters cigars in London.

Obviously that's not regular production...

[Colt45]

My understanding - bunched and bound cigars (prior to applying wrappers and caps) are put into molds and pressed to give a (relatively) uniform size / shape. These molded cigars are then wrapped and capped. I would still consider this part of the hand made process.

[MrGinger]

Hamlet normally makes his cigars without molds.

[Smallclub]

These molded cigars are then wrapped and capped. I would still consider this part of the hand made process.

Of course. And the use of a mold doesn't prevent a cigar from being "fofo", underfilled, overfilled, "empalmado", etc.

It's not a crucial step in the process

[Onsto]

If I recall correctly, the FoH custom known as the 'Czar' was rolled entirely without moulds. The vitola was a flying pig...

[Jnaube]

Mmmmmmmnn Backwoods. Espeshelly the frooty ones.

I'll pass on thisone,

[bigharpoon]

The J. Fuego Sangre del Toro Originals are actually pretty good.

[Colt45]

If I recall correctly, the FoH custom known as the 'Czar' was rolled entirely without moulds. The vitola was a flying pig...

The "Czar" was actually a perfecto à la a slightly larger Britanica - pic borrowed from Brendan:

[CanuckSARTech]

If I recall correctly, the FoH custom known as the 'Czar' was rolled entirely without moulds. The vitola was a flying pig...

The "Czar" was actually a perfecto à la a slightly larger Britanica - pic borrowed from Brendan:

As Ross mentioned, perfecto. The intial plan at the time was to be identical in format to the Celestiales Finos (which is a perfecto in generality, just with the modified head), if I'm recalling that correctly.

Regarding CQ's initial post, I think that Cuaba stuff was done completely without molds until 2008 or so (as they weren't available yet. And I'm not 100% on the date, but I think it's in the 2006 to 2008 window).

But, like others have said, I too wouldn't consider the use of standardizing molds to necessarily take anything away from the "hand rolled" nature of these. No more so than a box-pressed cigar is any less hand rolled than one that isn't squared off.