They were everywhere......you couldn't give them away. Today they are superstars.

[El Presidente]

This was a topic of last Fridays deck afternoon 

They were everywhere......you couldn't give them away.....today they are superstars. 

 

Those cigars that use to sit on shelves. The ones that with very little effort you could find at a B&M  and cost bugger all. Today? BR superstars. 

 

 

 

[El Presidente]

Cohiba Reserva Seleccion 2003 

 

I couldn't give them away at the time   AUD price was $1100  and USD around  $500 from memory. 

They hung around in my humidor (I had 50 or so of these) until 2013 where I discounted out the last of them. 

They were excellent cigars. 

Shoot me now.  $6K USD + today 

 

 

 

[El Presidente]

Saint Luis Rey Double Corona 

PCC use to ask me "Can you take some SLR DC Rob? Please!"

They were so hard to move and always discounted.  Brilliant cigars.....just little love from the public. 

I was selling them for $20 AUD each (duty paid) as a single instore just to move them.  Online price was around $390 USD discounted.

Today?  $2500 USD  + being achieved. 

 

[El Presidente]

 

Bolivar Corona Extra 

I loved this cigar. I loved them in 50 cabs but they are now long discontinued. 

However, they were retailier dust catchers. 

Couldn't give them away. I wwas breaking up cabs to make 5 stick samplers. 

Today? a good cab can get north of 2K. 

 

[El Presidente]

H. Upmann Super Corona. 

I use to buy these in bulk when in Cuba. $80 ish a box. PCC never really carried them. 

You could find aged examples everywhere. I use to buy them because I smoked them .....God knows no one else did! 

Today. $1k north. 

 

[Nocoins]

I remember these days and these cigars readily obtainable here at FOH.  I also only bought what I liked and wanted to smoke and felt like made sense as a purchase of a consumable.  Never looked at cigars as an investment until the market really grew up into what it is.  That meant no boxes of Reservas for $30/cigar, no DCs, no Punch, no 52+ RG, etc.  At least I made off with some Bolivar CE and Inmensas and have aged examples of things going crazy or are otherwise unobtainium now.

[riderpride]

13 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

 

Bolivar Corona Extra 

I loved this cigar. I loved them in 50 cabs but they are now long discontinued. 

However, they were retailier dust catchers. 

Couldn't give them away. I wwas breaking up cabs to make 5 stick samplers. 

Today? a good cab can get north of 2K. 

 

These things were absolutely fantastic fresh; after the 6 year mark they seemed to lose the 'punch' compared to BPCs.

[JohnS]

31 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

Cohiba Reserva Seleccion 2003 

I couldn't give them away at the time   AUD price was $1100  and USD around  $500 from memory. 

They hung around in my humidor (I had 50 or so of these) until 2013 where I discounted out the last of them. 

They were excellent cigars. 

Shoot me now.  $6K USD + today 

I can quite confidently say that the examples I've had from this release in the last few years have pretty much been superb. Kudos to anyone who invested in this unique special release years ago! 👍 (I say unique because there have been no multi-vitola reserva releases ever since!)

Also, incidentally, I believe that the leaf that went into Cohiba vitolas around this time was of particularly high quality. For example, people still remark about the initial Cohiba Siglo VIs from this era.

[GoodStix]

Most of us ain't that flexible...

 

[BrightonCorgi]

Punch Royal Selections, RA Coronas, Punch Black Prince & Prince of Wales.  LGC MdO 1&2

[jakebarnes]

Agree on Punch BP.

LGC MdO were definitely up there. Loved those things too--felt like a lot of LGC line outside of the Tainos really flew under the radar. Miss that twang from those MdO #2. Wish I'd bought a warehouse of them. 

I made hay with ERDM lonsdales too. Felt like I was the sole demand. 

Also felt like you could find Partagas 898V pretty easily. 

 

 

 

 

[NSXCIGAR]

Pretty much everything that has been cut used to languish by the 90s-2000s with a few exceptions. 

Definitely agree the above were sales dogs--LGC MdOs & Tainos, HU Super Coronas, Boli CE, Lonsdales, Inmensas, ERDM pretty much everything, SLR DC.

Standouts to me were most of the Churchills of every brand. RyJ Prince of Wales? Partagas Churchills? Yikes. Yes, they need more Julieta 2s today but they certainly had too many in those days.

I would have to say the Punch Black Prince is right up there. Could not give them away. Today $980 on BR.

[tom153]

Bolivar Gold Medals. I remember those things were sitting around at $90 for a box of 10.

[Ken Gargett]

12 hours ago, El Presidente said:

Cohiba Reserva Seleccion 2003 

 

I couldn't give them away at the time   AUD price was $1100  and USD around  $500 from memory. 

They hung around in my humidor (I had 50 or so of these) until 2013 where I discounted out the last of them. 

They were excellent cigars. 

Shoot me now.  $6K USD + today 

had not realised that they were difficult to sell. bought two - one from you and one from Havana. both around the $500. one box destroyed by a dodgy humidor. 

 

12 hours ago, El Presidente said:

Saint Luis Rey Double Corona 

PCC use to ask me "Can you take some SLR DC Rob? Please!"

They were so hard to move and always discounted.  Brilliant cigars.....just little love from the public. 

I was selling them for $20 AUD each (duty paid) as a single instore just to move them.  Online price was around $390 USD discounted.

Today?  $2500 USD  + being achieved.

no you were not. you were selling them for A$40. and the early ones had no bands.

the $20 comes from one of the early cigar dinners you used to hold at Toowong. i remember you were late. i was there with Merls, i think. PJ? possibly Des? possibly not. might be pre-Des. 

we were all awaiting the evening's featured cigar. which cohiba? which top Partagas? a sir winnie?

and instead, you fronted with something called an SLR DC. never seen a room deflate quicker. i reckon about 80% of the room immediately decided they were going to be busy for the dinner the following month. 

they were the 2001's. anyway, we eventually got to these and away we went. i have never had an ash on a cigar like the one that night. when i first knocked it off, it was getting close to 2/3rds of the length of the cigar. astonishing. and i just loved the cigar.

you were offering them for A$20 one night only. i asked you how many you had left. you had twenty. i bought the lot that instant. i think i still have one left. love SLR DCs but none have matched those 2001's. spectacular. 

[Bill Hayes]

3 hours ago, JohnS said:

I can quite confidently say that the examples I've had from this release in the last few years have pretty much been superb. Kudos to anyone who invested in this unique special release years ago! 👍 (I say unique because there have been no multi-vitola reserva releases ever since!)

Also, incidentally, I believe that the leaf that went into Cohiba vitolas around this time was of particularly high quality. For example, people still remark about the initial Cohiba Siglo VIs from this era.

Yep, the Siglo 6 and DC from 2003 were next level. Best I've experienced. And I also had quite a few SLR DC at the time. They were magnificent. The other cigar that I remember being ignored was the Partagas D1 around 2004 I think. Think it was a Lonsdale maybe. Great format. It packed a punch then but I still liked it. Never had the patience or the coin to put away a box though. You could taste the potential. Old school Partagas but on steroids without losing complexity. There was a lot going on from memory. Just needed time to settle.

[ChanceSchmerr]

I feel like Punch Super Seleccion No.1 could make this list as well, with the caveat that they havn't captured that excessively high a price on BR yet.  Still, a brilliant cigar when the construction is right. I have one cab and the construction has been spot on.

23 minutes ago, Ken Gargett said:

no you were not. you were selling them for A$40. and the early ones had no bands.

LOL Ken.  Although the early bandless ones were the Prominentes, weren't they?  I wasn't around at that time of the hobby but that's what I recall from the literature.

[Ken Gargett]

21 minutes ago, ChanceSchmerr said:

I feel like Punch Super Seleccion No.1 could make this list as well, with the caveat that they havn't captured that excessively high a price on BR yet.  Still, a brilliant cigar when the construction is right. I have one cab and the construction has been spot on.

LOL Ken.  Although the early bandless ones were the Prominentes, weren't they?  I wasn't around at that time of the hobby but that's what I recall from the literature.

i believe so.

and agree re the 2003 sig VIs. legendary. always found it curious that we never hear about the 02 Sig VIs. 

[Edicion]

Diplomatico #2 were just sitting there on bottom shelfs or tucked away not very long ago

[PigFish]

Every time I think I might unload some cigars on BR… I come to my senses…

[Rhinoww]

11 minutes ago, PigFish said:

Every time I think I might unload some cigars on BR… I come to my senses…

Exactly. I buy to smoke. I will enjoy what I have as long as I can. 

[JohnS]

8 hours ago, Ken Gargett said:

i believe so.

and agree re the 2003 sig VIs. legendary. always found it curious that we never hear about the 02 Sig VIs. 

That's because, with Cuba being Cuba, the listed year of release for the Cohiba Siglo VI is 2002 but by the time they had actually come to be packaged, shipped and circulated, it wasn't 2003 that they were in people's hands.

[Ken Gargett]

Just now, JohnS said:

That's because, with Cuba being Cuba, the listed year of release for the Cohiba Siglo VI is 2002 but by the time they had actually come to be packaged, shipped and circulated, it wasn't 2003 that they were in people's hands.

john, that all might be correct. like lots of things here, fat chance finding the exact story. i always believed that the 03s were the initial release. we were in Cuba for that. think i still have a box. then i started hearing things about 02s. assumed it was a delayed release but friends have indicated that there were actually 02s out on the market, though tiny quantities.

personally, the addition of a new Siglo to the range would have been such a big event that i struggle to believe that we did not know about them at the time. but they could have been a toe in the water (still believe that the early LEs were just that - a toe in the water and they had no idea how successful they'd be). 

[Cigarsmoker81]

23 hours ago, El Presidente said:

Cohiba Reserva Seleccion 2003 

 

I couldn't give them away at the time   AUD price was $1100  and USD around  $500 from memory. 

They hung around in my humidor (I had 50 or so of these) until 2013 where I discounted out the last of them. 

They were excellent cigars. 

Shoot me now.  $6K USD + today 

I remember walking into a cigar shop in London in 2015 and finding them, I didn’t know what they were and they were reasonably priced in London terms, bought couple of sticks and loved them! Wish I bought the whole lot 

[BrightonCorgi]

QdO's use to languish and now are popular.  Even before the re-brand they gained renewed interest. 

[Corylax18]

16 minutes ago, BrightonCorgi said:

QdO's use to languish and now are popular.  Even before the re-brand they gained renewed interest. 

Yeah, the old band Corona Claro's where always around. I've yet to see one in the wild with the new bands.