Seal Placement on Boxes?

[RonR]

I've been doing some cross-checking on cubancigarwebsite.com for signs of counterfeits for boxes I currently have on hand. For the most part things have been checking out fine. One of my boxes has the serial number torn off of the seal, which apparently is not necessarily a red flag. Other than that, things looked fine...

...until I got to this: Seal Placement. On cubancigarwebsite, it says, "The new seals are also be placed with the fold through the centre of the coat of arms, but with the barcode showing at the front of the box, resulting in the seal being fixed in reverse of the previous seals." I'm attaching a pic from their site that shows the placement of the fold through the coat of arms as they described. Some of my boxes have the seal affixed with the fold through the center of the coat of arms, but a few had them placed on the box without even being close to centered. Those ones are placed where they should be on a box, but not close to where the fold supposedly should go.

I've been Googling and looking here at cc box pics, and am seeing pretty much the same thing. Some seals are centered while many others are a far cry from being centered. So, my question is this: How much credence do you place on the fold placement of the box seals? Cubancigarwebsite seems to be pretty exhaustive and held in high esteem as well. Should we assume that seal fold placement on a cc box is an automatic give away for counterfeits? I realize that "proper" placement is not an automatic confirmation of real cc's, but is it an automatic giveaway of fakes? Thanks for any feedback. Cheers, Ron

[stogieluver]

There has been absolutely no variation in the placement and orientation of the seals on the boxes I've ordered from our host and one other trusted source in the three years I've been buying CC's. On all the dress boxes and cabs I have, the seals are always placed with 3/4's of the seal on the top of the box with the hologram at the top and with the fold in the middle of the crest.

Others more knowledgeable than I can chime in here, but from my experience this is a constant and any variation from this would be a huge red flag to me.

[shlomo]

Its Cuba. Variation is the spice of life!

[El Presidente]

I have seen them placed on the opposite front corner, backwards (on the hing side/back of the box). So common that I don't even blink.

[skalls]

I've heard of someone getting the cigars banded with the wrong marca's band. Have you ever come across that yet Rob?

[SCgarman]

Pretty sure Rob has seen the gamut of Cuban quality control conundrums.

[stogieluver]

Pretty sure Rob has seen the gamut of Cuban quality control conundrums.

No doubt about that. My sample size is a little over 100 boxes over the last three years, so pretty small. Prez sees that many, and many more every day, I'm sure. But, I don't recall ever seeing any variation in placement of the seal in those boxes. Lucky, I guess.

[RonR]

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

It sounds like this is a real red flag, except for when it's not. LOL

FWIW, after I posted, I emailed Alex from that site. Not sure if he's on here already, but if I hear from him, I'll enter his reply.

[RonR]

No doubt about that. My sample size is a little over 100 boxes over the last three years, so pretty small. Prez sees that many, and many more every day, I'm sure. But, I don't recall ever seeing any variation in placement of the seal in those boxes. Lucky, I guess.

To me that actually does sound like a pretty decent amount of boxes to never have encountered this. Right now I've got about 12 boxes on hand. When I looked at their placement, they were right around 50/50 with that fold placement...they're not close to me right now, so couldn't give the exact breakdown, but it was close enough to 50/50 if not exactly.

I did check all the serial numbers on the Habanos Verification site, and they all came up as OK. I also saw how they place the serial numbers in the green part of the seal (almost camouflaged if you didn't know to look there) and those numbers all matched up with larger printed serial number at the bottom of each corresponding seal. When looking, I couldn't make those numbers out by just looking at them, so I took pics with my phone and then could blow up those shots bid enough that I could then get those numbers. I'll post a pic of these more "hidden" serial numbers.

[RonR]

This shows the other location of the serial number

[El Presidente]

I've heard of someone getting the cigars banded with the wrong marca's band. Have you ever come across that yet Rob?

I have seen Asia pacific Regionals banded Canada.

Have seen Por larranaga Belicoso Regionals with Por larranaga Petit Corona Ribbons.

Have seen boxes with no bands.

Have seen boxes with half a dozen sticks with no bands.

Have seen boxes missing 7 cigars

Have seen Cabinets of 50 built to be packed sideways as opposed to lengthways

Have seen things such as this:

[Fuzz]

As long as the seals aren't placed loose in the box!

[GasGuy82]

I've got a box of ERDM Demi Tasse (psp) from rob where the warranty seal is creased over the hinge side of the box. Cuba being Cuba...

[Fumadoro]

I have seen Asia pacific Regionals banded Canada.

Have seen Por larranaga Belicoso Regionals with Por larranaga Petit Corona Ribbons.

Have seen boxes with no bands.

Have seen boxes with half a dozen sticks with no bands.

Have seen boxes missing 7 cigars

Have seen Cabinets of 50 built to be packed sideways as opposed to lengthways

Have seen things such as this:

post-4-0-37485400-1417505623.jpg

Bushido .jpeg

There must be a code in there. Do we have anyone who can decipher it?

[SCgarman]

This shows the other location of the serial number

cws-2011-marked-small.jpg

Don't get all wrapped up with seal placement having to be "exactly perfect" and all this other stuff. If you trust your vendor as selling the genuine product there is no need to have to verify every box you buy. If you have doubts about the vendor, a simple pm to Rob here could give you an answer whether they are legit or not. Or buy from FOH. El Pres is aware of many of the other online vendors and most likely would not be offended if you asked him about your source being legit. Nobody here wants to see somebody get burned buying fakes regardless of where purchased. Cheers!

[RonR]

Hey Guys, Alex did respond, so here it is.

Hi Ron,

Had a look at your thread – the answers you’ve been getting are about right.

All things going to plan, the fold should be through the centre of the shield. If the shield placement is wrong on a particular box and everything else seems right then don’t give it a second thought. If the seal placement is wrong and there are a few other things that are also wrong, then it’s time to be suspicious.

You mention in your thread that the seals check out – aside from cases of fake cigar/real packaging (generally very small scale operations), this has proved to be a fairly reliable authenticity check. You also mention the seals being removed – this indicates that the source is a grey market importer operating outside of their geographic region. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the cigars are fake, but it does mean that the vendor is willing to play a bit fast and loose with the official distribution pipeline, which is never a great sign.

Hope that helps,
Alex

[JohnS]

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

It sounds like this is a real red flag, except for when it's not. LOL

FWIW, after I posted, I emailed Alex from that site. Not sure if he's on here already, but if I hear from him, I'll enter his reply.

Alex is a member of our forum, ATGroom. It's great to hear you got his reply, and it's also great to have a resource such as Cuban Cigar Website to help us in instances such as these (together with the input of our experienced and expert members!).

Alex and I conducted an interview recently to discuss the latest developments of Cuban Cigar Website and how we can support its running, as it is not affiliated with any commercial backing or interests. This interview will posted, on FoH, this week.

[earthson]

There has been absolutely no variation in the placement and orientation of the seals on the boxes I've ordered from our host and one other trusted source in the three years I've been buying CC's. On all the dress boxes and cabs I have, the seals are always placed with 3/4's of the seal on the top of the box with the hologram at the top and with the fold in the middle of the crest.

Others more knowledgeable than I can chime in here, but from my experience this is a constant and any variation from this would be a huge red flag to me.

I just received a box from our host where the seal was not centered with the coat of arms over the corner. The point being that they're just stickers (with strong adhesive, at that) and I've seen plenty of boxes with stickers in all sorts of configurations. I'd just go by the aroma and flavors for verifying authenticity.

P.S.: Same goes for the bands - while the print, embossing and crimping quality is getting better, a weird band doesn't necessarily indicate a counterfeit.

[SCgarman]

I just received a box from our host where the seal was not centered with the coat of arms over the corner. The point being that they're just stickers (with strong adhesive, at that) and I've seen plenty of boxes with stickers in all sorts of configurations. I'd just go by the aroma and flavors for verifying authenticity.

P.S.: Same goes for the bands - while the print, embossing and crimping quality is getting better, a weird band doesn't necessarily indicate a counterfeit.

As I said before, if you trust your source as legit, no need for nit-picking the details. Cuban quality control is just that- Cuban. These factory workers are working for peanuts.

[El Presidente]

As I said before, if you trust your source as legit, no need for nit-picking the details. Cuban quality control is just that- Cuban. These factory workers are working for peanuts.

As I may have said in PM.

If you get $20 a month .......you get $20 a month in return on accuracy of placement