Carbon dating

[El Presidente]

It was in an email to and fro with Stefan that the thought bubble of carbon dating pre embargo cigars was thrown up. The amount of fakes out there is astounding. 

I am flat strap the next few days to investigate (fishing tomorrow + lunch and lads Friday )  but I am sure we will have a resident expert on carbon dating or similar technologies 

How accurate? How much? pro's and con's? Why it could work and/or why it won't?

My hard work is now done  

[BoliDan]

Ha. I'm certainly no palentologist... But carbon dating relies on a rate of decay. In 100 years of well preserved or something new, carbon dating should not find a difference. The half life of carbon (even in horticultural goods) is around 5000 years. @99call I'm curious if you got swindled to bring you to these extreme analyses?

[NSXCIGAR]

I believe radiocarbon dating has a margin of error of at around 80 years or so. So while that might be useful for the oldest cigars 99% of the most valuable cigars are less than 80 years old.

[El Presidente]

Brilliant! I love ticking off things on my daily planner 

[99call]

16 hours ago, BoliDan said:

@99call I'm curious if you got swindled to bring you to these extreme analyses?

No not myself, it was just on a point of topic whereby I, and a few of us out there had noticed that the market for pre-embargo fakes was getting bigger and bolder, people are going to ridiculous measures to copy the rarest of cabinets, and it was just a case of spitballing ideas, on what modern day analysis is out there to categorically call bullshit on it. 

 

16 hours ago, BoliDan said:

In 100 years of well preserved or something new, carbon dating should not find a difference

With the effects of vac packing and long term freezing aside, I would suggest most normally well kept cigars are in a cycle of off-gassing and material loss, obviously not to a degree where it would be discernible by eye, but i don't think it would be a automatic cut and shut case that carbon dating wouldn't pick this up.   

What might also be interesting is if there are tests available to determine the difference in cultivars of tobacco, or whether they can determine between countries of production?   

Another test which would be interesting is to do a XRF spectrometry test on the band adhesive along with a test sample of a genuine band, to see if they've using Pritstick or UHU.

[El Presidente]

1 minute ago, 99call said:

Another test which would be interesting is to do a XRF spectrometry test on the band adhesive along with a test sample of a genuine band, to see if they've using Pritstick or UHU.

You can't leave it there 

Fill us normal plebs in on what we are looking for. 

[99call]

13 hours ago, El Presidente said:

You can't leave it there 

Fill us normal plebs in on what we are looking for. 

"XRF (X-ray fluorescence) is a non-destructive analytical technique used to determine the elemental composition of materials. XRF analyzers determine the chemistry of a sample by measuring the fluorescent (or secondary) X-ray emitted from a sample when it is excited by a primary X-ray source."

it's very cool,  I've had it done on some copper alloy samples before, and it gives you a read out chart of all the constituent elements.  All for £250 per sample. 

 

 

17 hours ago, El Presidente said:

How much?

Material science centres are usually attached to Universities. The one in my home town is open to outside contracts as a way of making money for the university.  It's very cool, I did this a few years back, and basically if you've got the cash, you can ask them to test anything, on the range of different machines they've got. 

As I mentioned the XRF was £250 per sample. 

OR........or ...and I know you like your toys!.  They do have hand held models.  This one if metals specific

 

[PartagasIV]

I would love to volunteer a few sticks that were not bought from store-held stock...

[BoliDan]

13 hours ago, 99call said:

Material science centres are usually attached to Universities. The one in my home town is open to outside contracts as a way of making money for the university.  It's very cool, I did this a few years back, and basically if you've got the cash, you can ask them to test anything, on the range of different machines they've got. 

As I mentioned the XRF was £250 per sample. 

OR........or ...and I know you like your toys!.  They do have hand held models.  This one if metals specific

 

With all of the advancement in biotechnology, I still don't think we can easily determine our needs as cigar collectors.

The first issue is that our products have been dead for awhile (Cigars or wood).

Second issue... The cigars are fermented. I don't believe we bother to factor that in a lot of studies, and one fermented material will not have the same chemical/oxidization lifespan as the next.

Lastly, detecting the chemical tracing may be problematic because we have at least 70 years that these items were exposed to other environmental conditions that were endemic to the locale at which they were stored. Would they be chemically identifiable from an authenticated sample? Probably, but I imagine the more we test samples the larger the margin of error will become.

If there was a company that could do this for a charge and offer stamps of authenticity, I'd certainly pay for it. It would be revolutionary for something like Bond Roberts as well.

[Drguano]

This is all you need...