Sancho Panza Molinos

[awkwardPause]

Hey all. I know these were formally discontinued in 2012, but curious what the most recent box date is that people have seen.

 

Cheers

[Fugu]

My latest boxes are June 11.

[topdiesel]

October 11

[awkwardPause]

Thanks for the replies all.

The 2011’s make sense, of course, but I recently ran across a 2015 box which seemed very odd. Wonder if they’re still making them in small numbers? Very curious...

[JohnS]

I think I remember reading recently from another thread how @NSXCIGAR was discussing recent history in regards to Habanos S.A. discontinuing Lonsdale-sized cigars, i.e. 42 ring gauge x 165 mm (6.5 inches approx.) and stating how deleting this vitola (for H.S.A) was akin to 'war'. There's practically none of them left. 

My last Box date for Molinos? October 11.

[Fugu]

3 hours ago, awkwardPause said:

Thanks for the replies all.

The 2011’s make sense, of course, but I recently ran across a 2015 box which seemed very odd. Wonder if they’re still making them in small numbers? Very curious...

Stamping error or fake. Mollis are gone.

(Pics?)

[awkwardPause]

Stamping error or fake. Mollis are gone.
(Pics?)

Yeah. Doesn’t make sense to me either since I haven’t seen them, really since I started my CC journey back in 2013. I don’t have a pic but this was info from a reputable vendor. Didn’t purchase them, just had inquired when I saw it on a list and asked about box date since I thought they were long gone. If it were a pre-discontinuation box date I would have probably jumped in!

[Fugu]

Then perhaps just a deciphering issue. Ask him kindly to check again, or to send you a pic of the stamp (and box), pointing towards that dating issue, ..... and then buy those damn sticks!

[canadianbeaver]

Makes no sense to fake these. No one would know what they are.

They are lovely. And lonsdale. I am upstairs and they are downstairs, but 1999. SIA ESOO

CB

[NSXCIGAR]

The Molinos are long gone. Pic of the box code would be nice but probably a stamping error or smudge of a 2005 box. A mis-stamped as 2015 box would certainly be cool.

21 hours ago, JohnS said:

There's practically none of them left.

Yes, the Dalias and Cervantes vitolas are public enemy No. 1 for HSA. They've killed just about every one they can get away with at this point. The Monte 1, Siglo V and Party 898 I think they're stuck with for a while but at this point as bold as it would be I don't think any of those are 100% safe. 

 

[ayepatz]

12 minutes ago, NSXCIGAR said:

The Molinos are long gone. Pic of the box code would be nice but probably a stamping error or smudge of a 2005 box. A mis-stamped as 2015 box would certainly be cool.

Yes, the Dalias and Cervantes vitolas are public enemy No. 1 for HSA. They've killed just about every one they can get away with at this point. The Monte 1, Siglo V and Party 898 I think they're stuck with for a while but at this point as bold as it would be I don't think any of those are 100% safe. 

 

What have they got against a Lonsdale?  It’s my favourite vitola, as it is for many on here, and we happy few on FOH can’t be the only market, surely?

[El Presidente]

33 minutes ago, ayepatz said:

What have they got against a Lonsdale?  It’s my favourite vitola, as it is for many on here, and we happy few on FOH can’t be the only market, surely?

We pretty much are the only lonsdale fanboys 

Sales numbers never stacked up for Molly. One of my favourite cigars. 

However sales numbers don't stack up for a lot of cigars.

[ayepatz]

16 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

We pretty much are the only lonsdale fanboys 

Sales numbers never stacked up for Molly. One of my favourite cigars. 

However sales numbers don't stack up for a lot of cigars.

I swear, I don’t understand why they are indulging this ring-gauge buster craze. Surely it makes more sense to promote skinnies? If they rolled more Lonsdales than Dildos, wouldn’t the harvest would go further? ?

[fabes]

33 minutes ago, ayepatz said:

I swear, I don’t understand why they are indulging this ring-gauge buster craze. Surely it makes more sense to promote skinnies? If they rolled more Lonsdales than Dildos, wouldn’t the harvest would go further? ?

With so many under-filled cigars, they’re more/less getting the same result. 

[Fugu]

On 20.3.2018 at 8:36 PM, El Presidente said:

Sales numbers never stacked up for Molly. One of my favourite cigars.

However sales numbers don't stack up for a lot of cigars.

Stack up against what exactly? The question here for me, as I was alluding to in another recent thread, is: What's the actual benchmark then? By what measure? Of course you can't expect for a local or niche brand to bring in the same sales figures which a global brand like Monte or RyJ does. And such had never been much expected at all. But if you go by that approach now, then the special brands are doomed. Can't be really the aim to go with five global marcas, five popular donkey vitolas each - short to triple edmundo - staring at the lifting of the embargo, and all good ...?!

[NSXCIGAR]

7 hours ago, ayepatz said:

I swear, I don’t understand why they are indulging this ring-gauge buster craze. Surely it makes more sense to promote skinnies? If they rolled more Lonsdales than Dildos, wouldn’t the harvest would go further? ?

Higher wrapper-to-filler ratio with larger RG cigars and wrappers are always the bottleneck.  Also allows them to blow out more volado leaf and of course it caters to the modern preference of large RG cigars. 

Not that I'd consider 42-46 RG cigars "skinny", but evidently sales of many of these models just didn't hold up over the last 20 years. I mean, SLR Lonsdales, SP Molinos, VR Clasicos and RG Lonsdales were just becoming total shelf-sitters. I used to think that there was no downside to just producing every model in limited quantities to satiate demand for the devotees but margins for larger RG and special productions for streamlined marcas are so much greater, particularly with limited raw materials, I can't really call what HSA has done in the last 15 years as illogical or nonsensical from a profit standpoint which I suppose is their only obligation as much as I wish they'd not do it.

 

[dgixxer252525]

Lonsdale is my favorite viola as well...

[NSXCIGAR]

4 hours ago, Fugu said:

Stack up against what exactly?

That is an interesting question as overlooked as it may be. Were these vitolas' sales declining across all marcas proportionately or were they the worst-selling vitolas relative to other vitolas in those respective marcas? I may be guilty of assuming the Cervantes, Dalias and Coronas were less popular than they actually were. After all, the Monte 3 was the best selling Cuban cigar for decades until the early 2000s when the Monte 4 overtook it, holding the title until very recently when it became the PSD4. So for over 30 years, the two best-selling vitolas of the best-selling marca was a Coronas and Marevas which would seem to indicate to me that these two vitolas are a bit more popular than it would appear. 

It always seemed to me that those vitolas seemed to sit on the shelf and back up at the retailers but perhaps production on them was too high. I just find it reasonable that these models simply weren't selling well by all objective standards for HSA to embark on a ruthless campaign to eliminate them over the last 15 years. 

[GWG]

I am a skinny lover as well and havd been told that lancero, corona and Lonsdale were more difficult to roll and only the better rollers could do it, is there any truth to it?

 

[ayepatz]

1 hour ago, NSXCIGAR said:

Higher wrapper-to-filler ratio with larger RG cigars and wrappers are always the bottleneck.  Also allows them to blow out more volado leaf and of course it caters to the modern preference of large RG cigars. 

Not that I'd consider 42-46 RG cigars "skinny", but evidently sales of many of these models just didn't hold up over the last 20 years. I mean, SLR Lonsdales, SP Molinos, VR Clasicos and RG Lonsdales were just becoming total shelf-sitters. I used to think that there was no downside to just producing every model in limited quantities to satiate demand for the devotees but margins for larger RG and special productions for streamlined marcas are so much greater, particularly with limited raw materials, I can't really call what HSA has done in the last 15 years as illogical or nonsensical from a profit standpoint which I suppose is their only obligation as much as I wish they'd not do it.

 

Maths was never my strong suit, but I would imagine that you’d need more wrapper leaf for a box of Wide Churchills than a box than a box of HUPC, surely?

Bigger cigars have greater surface area, so, unless total production is down, wouldn’t you need more wrapper to produce the same number of cigars?

I would have thought that a given amount of wrapper leaf would go further if you reduced the vitola size. Is my logic screwy here?

Is total production way down? I don’t really follow production reports, so I don’t know.

[El Presidente]

8 minutes ago, GWG said:

I am a skinny lover as well and havd been told that lancero, corona and Lonsdale were more difficult to roll and only the better rollers could do it, is there any truth to it?

 

A little harder. However it is not rocket science. 

[El Presidente]

3 minutes ago, ayepatz said:

Maths was never my strong suit, but I would imagine that you’d need more wrapper leaf for a box of Wide Churchills than a box than a box of HUPC, surely?

Bigger cigars have greater surface area, so, unless total production is down, wouldn’t you need more wrapper to produce the same number of cigars?

I would have thought that a given amount of wrapper leaf would go further if you reduced the vitola size. Is my logic screwy here?

Is total production way down? I don’t really follow production reports, so I don’t know.

Availability to distributors is down. That is perhaps the best production measure. 

[GWG]

Speaking of Lonsdale I received this today and was surprised by presentation.

[ayepatz]

1 minute ago, El Presidente said:

Availability to distributors is down. That is perhaps the best production measure. 

So wouldn’t that leaf go further if the cigars being covered were smaller?

Logic would suggest that the bigger the cigars, the more wrapper you’re going to need to cover them.

Maybe there’s no wrapper shortage at all. Maybe they just didn’t do the sums correctly, went with the customer trend to fatter cigars, and ran out of leaf. Then panicked, because they couldn’t afford to lose all the new sales and realised that if they stopped making all the slow selling skinny cigars, they can then utilise the leaf they save and redirect it into making more dildos.

 

[El Presidente]

Just now, ayepatz said:

So wouldn’t that leaf go further if the cigars being covered were smaller?

 

Makes sense.....except for one thing.  THE MARKET IS VOTING WITH THEIR POCKETS 

Hmmmmm what will  select? 

...Monte 3 from 2015/16....no.....JLS1 from 14?....no.....Monte 1 from 15/16?....no ......Montecristo Petit Edmudo from 17......Absolutely!

Short and Fat. Mid sized and fat. Big and fat. That is just where the market is at the moment.