Cohiba Novedosos In the wild....

[NSXCIGAR]

12 hours ago, ATGroom said:

The fake boxes pictured in this thread had ENE 21 stamps and 0000507 serials that came back valid for Novedosos.

Interesting. So we either have repackaging or an inside job. Or the same serial from a known box is being repeated. 

[Bijan]

3 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

Interesting. So we either have repackaging or an inside job. Or the same serial from a known box is being repeated. 

Or you can go fishing on the verification website (when it's working).

[ATGroom]

5 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

Interesting. So we either have repackaging or an inside job. Or the same serial from a known box is being repeated. 

2 hours ago, Bijan said:

Or you can go fishing on the verification website (when it's working).

I saw two boxes that had unique but very close together valid serials. If you have a valid serial you can fish around that number and probably find at least a mastercase worth, but if there was legitimate production in ENE 21 it would have been very small and only gone to VIPs so the fakers would need to be very well connected to get a valid serial that way.

You can also fish completely by just putting in random numbers, but it would be finding a needle in a haystack to stumble on the tiny amount of legitimate production this way.

It seems more plausible to me that they can access the database directly somehow. The interesting question is whether they have read access or write access.

[Bijan]

2 hours ago, ATGroom said:

You can also fish completely by just putting in random numbers, but it would be finding a needle in a haystack to stumble on the tiny amount of legitimate production this way.

It seems more plausible to me that they can access the database directly somehow. The interesting question is whether they have read access or write access.

You don't need to be completely random, unless they changed the process. It used to be consecutive/sequential.

You take a valid serial and increment and you get one valid mastercase as you said, but then often other types of cigars but still valid.

So you take a December 21 and a February 22 box look at the serials and fish in between.

A lot of things like fancy watches, etc, have stopped using sequential serials because of this and have started using entirely random serials.

 

2 hours ago, ATGroom said:

It seems more plausible to me that they can access the database directly somehow. The interesting question is whether they have read access or write access.

If you have a botnet or just access to a lot of computers spread out, you can query thousands or tens of thousands of serials per hour. Given that it's a 7? digit number within a relatively limited range you wouldn't need a crazy rate to scan most of the recent production range.

Also read access is a lot easier than write access. Both from the point of view of pulling it off and going undetected.

I'd assume Habanos has (ok let's say could have) backups and they could check the backups vs current state of the database to see if anything doesn't line up.

[BrightonCorgi]

14 hours ago, Bijan said:

Or you can go fishing on the verification website (when it's working).

Are the serial numbers a Luhn algorithm?

[Bijan]

9 minutes ago, BrightonCorgi said:

Are the serial numbers a Luhn algorithm?

No, there's no checksum. As @ATGroom noted, they come in mastercase size chunks of consecutive serials.

So if you have serial X, and that's a box of something that comes in mastercases of 24 boxes, then then there will be at least 24 consecutive serial numbers, including X.

So X but also either X-1 or X+1 and so on.

So any random number is a potentially valid serial number. The only catch is a valid number might not be on the website, or might match the wrong type of cigar on the website.

But there's no way to reject a random serial offline. Except if one should notice multiple duplicates on the shelf. Or notice that the serial number is not in the right range for the date on the box code stamp.

[Cigarsmoker81]

Im currently in Madrid and found a shop that sells singles novodosos.To be frank I was tempted to buy one but hesitated, the cigar shop is a “Habano specialist” and claims everything they sell is 100% legit 

Any advice ?

[Ford2112]

Grab me one 🤣

[Stevieboy]

Im currently in Madrid and found a shop that sells singles novodosos.To be frank i tempted to buy one but hesitated, the cigar shop is a “ Habano specialist” and claims everything they sell is 100% legit 
Any advice ?

Which shop is it?

Sent from my SM-S908B using Tapatalk

[ATGroom]

5 hours ago, Cigarsmoker81 said:

Im currently in Madrid and found a shop that sells singles novodosos.To be frank I was tempted to buy one but hesitated, the cigar shop is a “Habano specialist” and claims everything they sell is 100% legit 

Any advice ?

Have yet to have it confirmed by a distributor, but it seems that every shop in Spain has gotten these recently, which tends to make me think that they have finally been released.

If they let you inspect the box and the date and serial check out for production in the last 6 months, I'd say you're probably fine.

[NSXCIGAR]

10 hours ago, Cigarsmoker81 said:

and claims everything they sell is 100% legit

If the shop claimed 99% of what they sold was legit I'd be concerned. 

Impossible to tell right now short of a distributor confirmation. 

4 hours ago, ATGroom said:

Have yet to have it confirmed by a distributor, but it seems that every shop in Spain has gotten these recently, which tends to make me think that they have finally been released.

Considering the climate it would certainly be prudent for HSA and distributors to make some kind of announcement or at least make themselves available to inquiry. This is a cigar that has been in limbo for years and is no doubt going to be heavily faked. 

I guess HSA loves to have a big hoopla "launch" for a cigar that is years away and then when it does come out say nothing and make people wonder what the hell is going on. 

[gormag38]

17 hours ago, Cigarsmoker81 said:

m currently in Madrid and found a shop that sells singles novodosos.To be frank I was tempted to buy one but hesitated, the cigar shop is a “Habano specialist”

Typically habano specialists are a great spot to buy legitimate cigars from. With that being said, I wouldn't be confident in buying a Novedosos in anything other than a box. (and even then I would still be skeptical). 

Not saying that the stock they have isn't legit, but according to some of the posts above the cigar was never really rolled in any sort of quantity, thus leading me to believe all the stock popping up on grey market vendors (and other places) could potentially be fake.....just my 2 cents. 

[Hoepssa]

My friend gifted me one last night, not a good smoke, and it's fake.

I believe it is Honduras leaf, similar taste to Punch Golden Era (NC). No blue dots under UV light.

Do those boxes in Spain legit?   

[NSXCIGAR]

On 7/26/2023 at 5:34 AM, gormag38 said:

I wouldn't be confident in buying a Novedosos in anything other than a box. (and even then I would still be skeptical).

A cigar like this I would only be buying from 5 or 6 vendors in the world. Vendors can get stock from anywhere. Some of these Novedosos could potentially be flawlessly faked to the point that even an experienced vendor could not tell. Why wouldn't a vendor buy a box off the street that looked perfect in every way? 

On 7/26/2023 at 5:34 AM, gormag38 said:

according to some of the posts above the cigar was never really rolled in any sort of quantity,

Correct--this new wave of Novedosos would have to have been recently produced and sent to the distributors. These would not be from the 2019 release which was extremely limited--probably no more than a few dozen boxes. 

4 hours ago, Hoepssa said:

My friend gifted me one last night, not a good smoke, and it's fake.

I believe it is Honduras leaf, similar taste to Punch Golden Era (NC). No blue dots under UV light.

Do those boxes in Spain legit?   

Can't say I'm surprised. I think @ATGroom was checking with Tabacalera on whether they actually received any for Spain? 

[ATGroom]

4 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

Can't say I'm surprised. I think @ATGroom was checking with Tabacalera on whether they actually received any for Spain? 

Never heard it from Tabacalera directly, but I talked to enough people in the know that I am comfortable that the boxes available in reputable stores in Spain since approx July are genuine.

A fair few of those same "in the know" people are saying that some very well connected VIPs have been able to obtain these over the last few years. Difficult to confirm.

However I can say for certain that 99% of those that have been in market since early 2022 and sold in Facebook groups etc are fake. 

[LOMTL]

On 9/5/2023 at 10:14 PM, Hoepssa said:

Do those boxes in Spain legit

The one I saw in May was at a very reputable Cava de puros/Estanco, the box was still sitting there in August when I came back. Haven't checked the serial though...

[Glass Half Full]

I'd been meaning to reply to this thread -- as I bought one single Novedoso back in May of 2022.  

I'd misplaced it though (deep in the humidor as I try not to smoke Cohibas without many years on them) ...and I just located it again yesterday.  Attached is a picture.  (That silly paper note on the foot is my doing of course.  I try to identify singles before setting them aside for the future.)

I don't have box information.  Interestingly, the Swiss supplier from whom I'd purchased it (a supplier I've always held in high regard) usually provides that information, even for singles, but it was omitted on the invoice for this cigar.  (I noticed it when it arrived, as I would usually put that on my "foot note," but I hadn't paid attention to its absence until seeing this thread.)  It was $89 for the single at the time (May 2022), and I haven't seen it for sale since.  

Sorry I don't have more information.  It doesn't strike me as poorly constructed, but better minds may have a view as to whether it is a fake.