Something Dotty going on ........The CSR mystery.

[El Presidente]

"It's always three dots above the COHIBA print on the Reserva seleccion bands!"

The below online image sums it up well.  The image originates from member Maverickdrinker. Cheers Art 

 

We pulled an auction on BR over the past week  because there was an extra row of dots on the Esplendidos and the Robusto. 

To clarify

 

Now to be fair, the seller raised the issue to us (serious kudos). Everything else checks out, serial number, box codes, vendor etal. 

The Cohiba Seleccion Reserva was produced over a couple of years from 02 and were still widely available at retail as recently as 2010. 

A matter of "Cuba being Cuba" or is there something more nefarious going on? 

Let's see if we can get to the bottom of this dotty issue. 

• We are searching for legitimate examples of non 3 dot examples of the Cohiba Seleccion Reserva. 
• Need a photo and a box code. 
• This box as purchased September 2003
• Check your boxes if you have one and post a photo (box open) and box code. All contributors go into the draw for a 3 pack of cracking Esplendidos. 
•  I will additionally provide a three pack of Cohiba Esplendidos to the first member to show that  a legitimate non 3 dot example actually exists 

 

 

 

 

 

[NSXCIGAR]

I hate to say it but this is a pic from a listing from a highly questionable online vendor and two bands have 4 rows of dots. Looks like the Piramides and Esplendidos.

[Bijan]

1 minute ago, NSXCIGAR said:

I hate to say it but this is a pic from a listing from a highly questionable online vendor and two bands have 4 rows of dots. Looks like the Piramides and Esplendidos.

I was just looking at that picture online

 

[NSXCIGAR]

1 minute ago, Bijan said:

I was just looking at that picture online

 

That vendor is so questionable I don't know how much value that pic has. They could be putting up pics of the real article but selling whatever. 

I will say for such a high-end cigar it would be surprising that a counterfeiter would miss something that obvious. The Seleccion Reserva Cohiba bands are standard Cohiba bands (standard band D) and a dime a dozen. 

Very peculiar discrepancy indeed...

[ATGroom]

Vote for the 3 dot.

Came to me as a gift, but I believe the original source was Cigar Czar circa 2008.

[Chibearsv]

4 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

That vendor is so questionable I don't know how much value that pic has. They could be putting up pics of the real article but selling whatever. 

I will say for such a high-end cigar it would be surprising that a counterfeiter would miss something that obvious. The Seleccion Reserva Cohiba bands are standard Cohiba bands (standard band D) and a dime a dozen. 

Very peculiar discrepancy indeed...

Especially for the most expensive of the bunch

[Justins123]

5 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

That vendor is so questionable I don't know how much value that pic has. They could be putting up pics of the real article but selling whatever. 

I will say for such a high-end cigar it would be surprising that a counterfeiter would miss something that obvious. The Seleccion Reserva Cohiba bands are standard Cohiba bands (standard band D) and a dime a dozen. 

Very peculiar discrepancy indeed...

If you do a reverse image search, it appears the vendor stole the picture from a tweet posted by a now defunct London retailer in 2015. 

[Bijan]

42 minutes ago, Justins123 said:

If you do a reverse image search, it appears the vendor stole the picture from a tweet posted by a now defunct London retailer in 2015. 

Which search engine? Not showing up for me on Google.

[Habana Mike]

Legit box. Bogus sticks.

Unfortunately happens frequently.

Caveat emptor!

Of course I could be wrong, would be wary of this one though.

[Justins123]

1 hour ago, Bijan said:

Which search engine? Not showing up for me on Google.

Google.  If you click on "Find other sizes of this image: All sizes" you'll see the Twitter link.

[NSXCIGAR]

4 hours ago, ATGroom said:

Vote for the 3 dot.

I don't think there's any question it's supposed to be the 3 rows. Can the 4 rows be a printer error is the question. And why on earth would counterfeiters use a fake band when these use the ubiquitous standard band available anywhere? 

Honestly, with these particular cigars I would have to say this is a 100% avoid. The kind of money these things go for everything has to be perfect including provenance. 

3 hours ago, Justins123 said:

it appears the vendor stole the picture from a tweet posted by a now defunct London retailer in 2015. 

Looks like they could have been just a b & m lounge. Maybe sold some sticks in the shop but wasn't what I'd consider a vendor in that sense.

Certainly no surprise that pic was ripped. But that's even more odd in a way. So now we have two images of two separate boxes of Cohiba RS with one or two bands having four rows of dots. This is just so bizarre considering these are just STANDARD bands!

[mprach024]

2 hours ago, Bijan said:

Which search engine? Not showing up for me on Google.

 

1 hour ago, Justins123 said:

Google.  If you click on "Find other sizes of this image: All sizes" you'll see the Twitter link.

? ....but....how?....wow....Bijan the Grey, Google Grand Wizard....needed a Google lesson?  The end times are near.

[Bijan]

23 minutes ago, NSXCIGAR said:

I don't think there's any question it's supposed to be the 3 rows. Can the 4 rows be a printer error is the question. And why on earth would counterfeiters use a fake band when these use the ubiquitous standard band available anywhere? 

My guess they had ready made fakes available for certain vitolas with the wrong band (Esplendidos, Robustos, Pyramids, respectively) and got lazy.

[NSXCIGAR]

1 hour ago, Bijan said:

My guess they had ready made fakes available for certain vitolas with the wrong band (Esplendidos, Robustos, Pyramids, respectively) and got lazy.

But only two of the three 47+ RG bands are off. In the OP, it's the Robustos and the Esplendidos. In the pic I found it's the Piramides and the Esplendidos. So they have the correct bands for 47+ RG. 

And the Reserva bands look dead on. If fake, those are great. So the bands that are very hard to get look great and the ones that are easy to get look bad?

One other thing to consider is that these are the first Cohibas ever released to have the new standard band D. I believe these hit just before the EL DCs. So counterfeiters would have prepared standard band C, not D. No one had ever seen one before and I don't believe the change was ever announced or previewed. They weren't doing big pre-release spreads at the Habanos Festivals in those days.

But upon realizing there was a brand new band that was much more challenging to forge with gold foil embossing and new fonts wouldn't they gave just gone out and found some new genuine standard band D? They were able to procure a genuine SR box and packaging but not some run of the mill Cohiba bands? On a fake as high-end as this release?

It's almost too dumb to be feasible as a fake. No, I still wouldn't buy this box, but man, a simple printing error would certainly make more sense here. 

[Bijan]

1 minute ago, NSXCIGAR said:

But only two of the three 47+ RG bands are off. In the OP, it's the Robustos and the Esplendidos. In the pic I found it's the Piramides and the Esplendidos. So they have the correct bands for 47+ RG. 

And the Reserva bands look dead on. If fake, those are great. So the bands that are very hard to get look great and the ones that are easy to get look bad?

I'm saying they had the cigar with fake bands on and didn't swap that band and added a real Reserva band. In my hypothetical scenario. Saves them the trouble of swapping that fake band for a real band D.

[NSXCIGAR]

1 hour ago, Bijan said:

and got lazy.

Lazy would be using easy to come by standard band D and not creating fakes from whole cloth. 

This whole thing is really just perplexing me...

[NSXCIGAR]

4 minutes ago, Bijan said:

I'm saying they had the cigar with fake bands on and didn't swap that band and added a real Reserva band. In my hypothetical scenario. Saves them the trouble of swapping that fake band for a real band D.

Like I said, they wouldn't have had fakes of band D before it arrived. It was the debut cigar of band D.

And why would they have prepared a Piramides? You'd have to make the cigars for this box. Piramides didn't exist and until they saw what was in this cabinet they wouldn't have known. 

[Bijan]

Just now, NSXCIGAR said:

Lazy would be using easy to come by standard band D and not creating fakes from whole cloth. 

This whole thing is really just perplexing me...

They might not have created the bands for this. What if they had cheap boxes of fake Esplendidos with 4 dot bands laying around?

But yeah could be printing error. Are there other cases of genuine 4 dot band D's?

[Bijan]

I guess more plausible printing error on first batch of bands?

[NSXCIGAR]

1 minute ago, Bijan said:

They might not have created the bands for this. What if they had cheap boxes of fake Esplendidos with 4 dot bands laying around?

Maybe, but why aren't they all 3 rows? And where did they get the Reserva bands? 

[Bijan]

But these are possibly replacement fakes. So not from 2003. Box is from 2003. Cigars sold or smoked and then replaced later.

[NSXCIGAR]

1 minute ago, Bijan said:

I guess more plausible printing error on first batch of bands?

Yes, this being ostensibly the first batch of band D would certainly lend some logic to the printing error theory. It would make the error much more reasonable.

[NSXCIGAR]

2 minutes ago, Bijan said:

But these are possibly replacement fakes. So not from 2003. Box is from 2003. Cigars sold or smoked and then replaced later.

Even more of a reason to just grab easy to come by band D. The cigars look good. The Reserva bands look good. The 3 row bands look good. And then they miss this? On a ultra- premium release going for many thousands of dollars? 

[Bijan]

1 minute ago, NSXCIGAR said:

Even more of a reason to just grab easy to come by band D. The cigars look good. The Reserva bands look good. The 3 row bands look good. And then they miss this? On a ultra- premium release going for many thousands of dollars? 

Yes makes sense to use genuine band d esplendidos if done in period. But band d esplendidos must be expensive today.

[Bijan]

Though picture was from 2015...