Discontinued sticks...gift'em to newbies or save?

[Ginseng]

But is the monopoly the main problem? After all, all these great cigars from the past were blended and rolled under a monopoly, and at a time when Cuba had much less interaction with the "rich" world (roughly said)…

I wouldn't say so.

A monopoly is just a construct, a description of the supply situation including distribution and pricing as Piggy noted. It seems to me that "monopoly" in this case is being used as a proxy for "a business management model and marketing strategy with which I disagree." That's entirely valid, but to your point, let's be clear about what we're really saying.

Wilkey

[Ginseng]

A great cigar is an idea for all times and any occasion… A luxury cigar is an affront to what cigar smoking is and ever was…

-Piggy

A brilliant statement, sir.

It is with a sense of resigned impotence that I maintain luxury is and should be considered a pejorative with respect to cigars.

To further pick a nit, while I eschew conceiving of cigars as luxury items, there can be such a thing as a "halo effect" in a constructive sense. That is, instead of enhancing experience through the conspicuousness of its possession or consumption, serving to increase internally-directed appreciation based on factors that enrich the experience in a less venal or crass sense. For example, heritage, craftsmanship, dedication, transparency of values.

I hate to go all academic but Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class introduces the concept of nonfunctional utility, a concept that fits the contemporary situation of cigars as luxury items to a T. Or expensive Scotch, or minute repeater tourbillon wristwatches for that matter.

The human proclivity to emulation has seized on the consumption of goods as a means to invidious comparison and has thereby invested consumable goods with a secondary utility as evidence of relative ability to pay.

Again I am forced to confront the paradoxes in my own relationship with Habanos. By analogy to Veblen's analysis, am I not consuming conspicuously based on aesthetic elitism in place of economic exclusivity? Am I any better if I am?

This has been a stimulating thread. Very enjoyable.

Wilkey

[1LegLance]

Cigars historically were relatively inexpensive as they were meant to be SMOKED...aging was something you did to improve the taste but when you look at historic pricing models even the highest end of the scale was not THAT high.

Today however it is more about mareting than smoking....cigar are meant to be BOUGHT is seems vs smoked. Otherwise why limited production runs? You do that as a marketer to create mysteque and move product. Improvement of a regular production model means you intend them to be consumed.

And please realize folks that Habanos SA is the marketing arm, Altidis is the company that bought a big chunk of Habanos SA...a little research on the timelines will help explain why the end of the 90's and the early 2000's were such an upheaval.

[Colt45]

But is the monopoly the main problem?

Not necessarily, but the monopoly is also responsible for the way cigars are currently produced, and the sizes and blends they are produced (and not produced) in. A little competition on an even playing field couldn't hurt....

[PigFish]

Obviously I can't know exactly what Ray may have had in mind, but I look at it simply as looking forward to the day when there is no longer a monopoly on the production of Cuban cigars - which I would agree with wholeheartedly.

To know me is to love me…! -LOL

Maybe not.

You got it Ross.

I am not at all sick of CCs. I am sick of Tabacuba f'ing up the cigar catalogue. It does not keep me up at night. It keeps more money in my wallet for other things. What it does not keep, is my interest. I have little lust for any new cigar and have plenty of older ones to smoke. I am open about my loss of interest in the current catalogue because there are people at H SA that read the forum.

I have earned the right to be critical. I am a customer, an old one. I have paid my dues…

As I have said before and this includes the folks with anesthetized testacles at Tabacuba. Don't like what I have to say; use the scroll bar?

I am happy to give accolades when and where they are due. I am also happy deliver a swift kick in the nuts when it is called for. I will stop when Rob pulls the plug on me, but not before! As far as Tabacuba is concerned, they might want to keep an eye on my feet…

-Piggy