Damaged Cigars

[mikinva]

Went to a garage sale yesterday and bought a box of Cubans for almost nothing. However, they had been stored 10+ years, the last year they were not in a humidor. Some dried mold. Some cracking damage. The cracked ones were mostly out of boxes. Mold is mostly on ones in boxes. Thoughts? Ideas?

 

 

 

 

[NSXCIGAR]

MdO 1 at a garage sale? And are those HU Super Coronas I see? I need to drive around your neighborhood.

As far as the cigars, they look fine. That mold can be wiped off. Freeze them and slowly reacclimate. 

[Fosgate]

Cigar glue and Cigar rolling papers for the damaged ones as someone noted previously as a successful test. 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VZ4LIU6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[99call]

19 minutes ago, NSXCIGAR said:

MdO 1 at a garage sale? And are those HU Super Coronas I see? I need to drive around your neighborhood.

This is what happens when people hide from family how much their cigars are worth.  They get sold off for nothing, once the owners have wriggled off their mortal coil. 

[mikinva]

The boxes are La Gloria Cubana MdO 1, RyJ 1 tubos and HU Aromaticas. There was also about 100 loose cigars (mostly in canning jars) of which half are HU Aromaticas, the rest I have no idea which vitolas. There is also a sealed box of JR Special Selection and about 50 Filipino cigars. What will freezing do? And by reacclimate, do you mean put them in a humidor with progressively higher RH Bovedas?

[El Presidente]

freezing will bring them back to ground zero and kill any nasties that have crawled inside. You then know what you have will affect any of your other cigars. 

My very unscientific process

Cigars in ziplock - freezer  6 days - fridge 1 day  (vegetable crisper section),  dry box/unhumidified desktop - 1 - 2 days,  humidor 65%

 

[mikinva]

Thank you.

 

[Baccy]

Some look ok but that one pic where the wrappers are all busted up is painful😭

[cigcars]

        *Despite some of the mold and flaws, looks like you made a prized catch!  Also, just curious - are you in the States or overseas?

[NSXCIGAR]

4 hours ago, Baccy said:

Some look ok but that one pic where the wrappers are all busted up is painful😭

Ah, one RyJ Beli and one NC Upmann that should hit the dumpster anyway. The rest are remarkably intact.

The best cigars in that bunch might end up being the mighty Party Chicos! MdO1, cello Aromaticos, Party Chicos--whoever owned these was a fairly serious smoker.

[canadianbeaver]

What a fantastic find. Keep us informed and hope you get wonderful humidor treasures out of this.

El Bingo!

CB

[Puros Y Vino]

You can re-acclimatize them slowly. And I do mean slowly.  I turned a couple of old, crispy mid 70's La Escepcions into spongy, smokeable cigars.  It took about a year but it was worth it.  Boveda sells kits for this kind of project.  As you're dealing with a lot of cigars, look into getting a bunch of tupperdores and various boveda packs.  What you'll need.

Some tupperware (aka tupperdores).

Humidity packs. From Low to medium to high. (I'd estimate 55/60/62RH).

Rotation schedule.  Low for about 6 months. 3 months medium. 3 months highest.  During each stretch, rotate the cigars in the tupperdore every month or so. If you do this too fast they will puff up and crack. You want to avoid that as much as possible.  Slow and steady wins the race. If you're patient, this could probably pay off nicely for you.

[CaptainQuintero]

  That's brilliant! Cigar find of a lifetime!

  Obviously don't know the individual state of the cigars but at first glance it looks like the vast majority should be fine 👍👍

Jars, cello and tubes oh my!

[mikinva]

Opened the canning jars this morning. They have what appears to be old machine mades. The only ones I could ID were the La Corona-Coronas, the others are some old vitola of Partagas, H U and Punch. What is the significance of the red strip on the cellophane, are they 2nds?

[BrightonCorgi]

3 minutes ago, mikinva said:

What is the significance of the red strip on the cellophane, are they 2nds?

That's where you open the cello from.

[mikinva]

I guess I didn't look close enough. Thanks

[Walter19]

What an amazing find! Damaged or not, pretty cool. 

[Tstew75]

Sweet find!!

But you guys seem overly optimistic about these dried up crackers regaining any former glory after reconditioning...a year outside a humidor?

I guess as long as they didn't pick up scent/flavors from whatever environment they were stored?

 

[CaptainQuintero]

2 hours ago, Tstew75 said:

Sweet find!!

But you guys seem overly optimistic about these dried up crackers regaining any former glory after reconditioning...a year outside a humidor?

I guess as long as they didn't pick up scent/flavors from whatever environment they were stored?

 

  Tubed, jarred, ziplocked, all don't really need humidification in general. The cabinets and cello will have a decent barrier.

  The odd cigar having mould points towards the cigars being kept somewhere with a slightly high humidity so drying out shouldn't really be an issue. 

  Only a year of not being actively watched

  Obviously can't see hands on but I'd guess the vast majority will be fine unless there's been something drastic in their storage we don't know about

[SmokyFontaine]

10 hours ago, Tstew75 said:

Sweet find!!

But you guys seem overly optimistic about these dried up crackers regaining any former glory after reconditioning...a year outside a humidor?

I guess as long as they didn't pick up scent/flavors from whatever environment they were stored?

 

Exactly what I was thinking. Really neat from an historical perspective, but from a safe smoking perspective, a tad bit scary. Regardless, I too would love to hear how they turn out. Good luck!

[Nino]

On 3/15/2021 at 7:16 PM, CaptainQuintero said:

  Tubed, jarred, ziplocked, all don't really need humidification in general. The cabinets and cello will have a decent barrier.

  The odd cigar having mould points towards the cigars being kept somewhere with a slightly high humidity so drying out shouldn't really be an issue. 

  Only a year of not being actively watched

  Obviously can't see hands on but I'd guess the vast majority will be fine unless there's been something drastic in their storage we don't know about

Agreed. Cigars are less fragile than we think.

[ZigZauer]

Who would expect these from a garage sale


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