Question to the board

[El Presidente]

Question to the board 

Does a box without a box code constitute a faulty product in your eyes?

Use the poll for me and feel free to detail your thoughts. 

I haven't had a complaint as yet but boxes without codes are not rare.  Most people accept them without a second thought. 

However in the world of flipping, it may make a difference. It is not something that we check every box for. 

Is the box code more than an internal reference point?

[Toast & Taste]

Nope.

The quality is in the stick itself, all else is distraction.

Though knowing the age/factory is beneficial, as those components do affect the taste...

I love to hate contradicting myself....

 

Big Al

 

Quote

 

 

[ayepatz]

I’ve voted yes, but I freely admit to being a bit OCD. 

[99call]

Information is power. Power to aid an enthusiast to "try" and locate the cigars they believe will fulfill their desires. But as we all know. All assurances about a box mean nothing untill you've smoked the entire thing......then the vicious cycle begins again!! Ha. 

 More should be done to stamp out flippers.  Ultimately I would 1000% prefer to pay a merchant like FOH to hold on to stock and sell it at a premium. Than a flipper. Essentially a ticketing system should be employed where you try to buy via a random number generator, that either gives you a no! Or a yes!. Half on the value of flipper cigars is that they never really got the market in the 1st instance.  

[Ethernut]

For those of us that truly understand the CC world and are looking to smoke/gift and enjoy cigars I'd say no as there is a bit of charm in the Cuban consistency [sic].  For those with motivations to sell/flip the answer is yes. No clear cut yes or no answer here IMHO.

[joeypots]

May be the yes or no choice of failed or not failed is a little severe? How about a flawed product and to what degree. I have a box of El Laguito CORO and the stamp is so light it's almost impossible to see. The cigars are epic, the packaging is faulty. I'm keeping them and I do think they would be trouble on the secondary market. 

[ponfed]

It's nice to have, for reference I think.  Like to identify years that seem to be good for such and such and to get to know a particular vitola, or even particular boxes evolution. Gives you a reference point, however fuzzy, as to what age you liked them best.

But  I wouldn't consider absence of a boxcode a fault or defect.

Other than that it's more of a collector thing, IMO. The stats are a big deal I would assume for the collector mindset.

As for flippers, I don't care a whit.

[HarveyBoulevard]

If I did not trust my vendor then I would view it as a product fail. It is important information to assist with authentication in my opinion. If you do trust your vendor then I really don't care if they come in a paper sack much less have a box date.

[LLC]

I voted yes. If something isn’t done right it isn’t done right. That said, if it wad What I consider an everyday cigar meant for smoking over the next year or two it wouldn’t bother me if it came from here. If it was a box I planned to keep a long time before I finished it I would like to have and know the box code. 

[Puros Y Vino]

Last March I was in Havana.  There were a lot of RASS 50 cabs to be found in many of the shops.  Not a single one had a box code on it.  It could have been a screwup. It could have been a con job for all I know.  It did get my spidersense tingling and I and many others decided it was not worth the risk. That to me is an imperfect product.  And that imperfection warded off a few customers, possibly more and in some cases, some did not care and were OK with it.  To me, a missing box code is akin to a car without a VIN #.  It's absence does not inspire confidence.

[canadianbeaver]

Yes.

[Riverstyx]

My boxes are not purchased to be resold; however, I also see them as an asset that could be sold off if I were to die.  No box code makes that more difficult.

[wineguy]

From FOH it does not. So I voted no.   Another merchant maybe a yes.  I would prefer to have the code and only have one from 24:24 that arrived without a code( out of 100+)

[dominattorney]

My vote is no.  I don't pay attention to box codes at all, unless the authenticity of the box is suspicious, in which case the code itself is of less importance than the font/size/print etc. 

[Cayman17]

23 minutes ago, wineguy said:

From FOH it does not. So I voted no.   Another merchant maybe a yes.  I would prefer to have the code and only have one from 24:24 that arrived without a code( out of 100+)

Exactly my position.  No code from FOH is okay. From someone else, I would question it. 

[SigmundChurchill]

I said no.  “Failed” is too strong.  If the cigars are good, you can hardly call it a “failed product”.  I recently received a box without the code, from another vendor.  The cigar I smoked tasted good, so as long as I will enjoy the cigars in the box, it is not a fail.  I do take off a mark though, for not having the option to accurately age the box.

[garbandz]

Failed packaging,perhaps.

As has been said, it's the cigars that make the statement.

 

I would try to find out, for the reason of ageing only, or I would mark the box with best guess of age.

[HabanosNJGuy]

Is there any consistency to factory codes/date within a mastercase?  Could you figure out at least an approximate date based on the other boxes in the case? 

 

My answer is similar to what others have said, if it is from you, no, it is not a faulty product.  I would be quite comfortable purchasing an HQ 50 cab RASS with an approximate date late 2016 - early 2017.  If I'm buying blind from somewhere else, everything needs to be tip top.

Same goes for bandless cigars.

[Lotusguy]

Faulty - yes, without a doubt.

Do I care? Not really, for smoking stock. Keeping in mind also that NC basically never have box codes. There is a case to be made for HSA dropping it altogether.

[Islandboy]

Being a stickler for how things are written, the question clearly states that it’s a good box of cigars. If authenticity were in question because of the source, I’d be leaning towards what @bundwallah said. But assuming the term “good cigars” confirms they are the real deal, then as much as I find it fun to track the date of a box as it gathers age, or try to collect dates of my birth month, I would not call it a failed product....just failed packaging as others have said.

As far as factory code goes, this information is relatively useless to me. 

[Booyaa]

No.

[JGD]

As many others have said, if the vendor is trustworthy then I wouldn't have much of a problem, however, I would contact the vendor to ask if they have any idea what it was (based on other boxes in the master case). With that being said, it would also depend on what type of cigar it was - it would bother me a lot less if it was a box of Partagas Shorts than a box of Esplendidos. 

[Derboesekoenig]

No, but it's always nice to have. 

[Moogypug]

Yes and no. 

Codes are good to keep track of factory quality, and it’s “fun” to know the minutiae of the product in hand. (In fact, I’m with Ken in his pursuit of identifying the exact roller.) It may also be important due to fakes/perception of fakes out there (although a good counterfeiting racket can duplicate it easily). 

Having said that, if I trust a vendor (like I do with Rob), it’s doesn’t matter that much anymore. I used to care a lot more when I was getting my sticks through other vendors. 

 

Cheers. 

[Ribeye]

I voted yes. I trust my vendor......but some crazy stuff goes on behind the scenes in Cuba and other countries. Perhaps a master case or boxes have been switched from the truck in transit. Nobody knows without smoking them.  Once the provenance is gone, there always remains a taint.