Habanos SA Authenticity Check comes back legit but....

[gwee]

I ordered a box of Partagas D5's and a box of HDM Palmas Extras.

The serial numbers check out on Habanos website but after looking into the company i ordered them from it sounds like they have been known to sell "good" fakes.

My question is do fakes make it past Habanos authenticity check?

The Partagas came sealed and the HDM's were opened

[gigabyte056]

The Habanos check is notorious in being faulty at best.

False positive and negatives are known to happen and faking a legit number shouldn't be too difficult.

The only real way to know if a cigar is legit is buying from a known and trustworthy source...

[gwee]

Thanks for the response.

Im not too sure about the source. Ive read mostly good and some bad on the seller.

To my untrained eye everything looks good.

[Pedro2486]

An idea. Run your thumb down the seal and see if you can feel the edges of a smaller seal under it. That'll be the tabacuba seal. That may help authenticate at least the box

[Habanoscohiba]

Nice stuff. Agree with you @pedro2486.

[Bclass1]

Remember this as well: The Habanos authenticity check is only truly useful when checking sealed boxes. If your box is sealed and the cuban seal also has the serial numbers micro-printed in, (only on newer product from 2013 and up I believe) and it checks out on the Habanos SA website, I would have to say the box is completely legit. If your buying unsealed boxes from an untrustworthy vendor, then the box may very well be the real deal, but the cigars that are put inside them may be possible fakes.

I don't buy unsealed boxes from anyone but Rob.

[sheppsea]

I think the Habanos Authenticy check can be a bit of a red herring, even without all of the bugs and mistakes in the system, if someone really wanted to create a high quality fake box of cigar I would think one of the first things they would do is make sure the number on the seal is the same as one on a legitimate box

[Habana Mike]

Id have to agree with sheppsea that an astute counterfeiter would be wise to use actual numbers. Was in Freeport a few years back and all the boxes looked to have legitimate serial numbers.

Funny thing was, same numbers on every box!

[shlomo]

I doubt anybody would bother faking Palma extras....

Just don't buy from that vendor anymore.