Fake Novedosos


LordAnubis

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So I dipped my toe into fakes 😂 Novedosos are all over the internet at the moment. So I found a vendor (not an obvious fake, but turns out does lots of fakes) who of course has got these direct from Habanos. Interestingly, these items departed from a location just a short swim away from the island, so probably first sign.

I paid a handsome sum, think Esplendidos pricing (before current markup). They sent images of codes etc before hand and it checked out. Interestingly the only picture they didn’t send before hand was the top of the wooden box. No idea why. 

Anyway. Outer box is ok. Kinda sloppy really. Some stuff not straight. Fair bit of bleed or gaps where paint just meet at joins  

 
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Cedar sheet is more like a plank of tree trunk. Thick and rough. Pretty suss. But just looks like water damaged thick cedar. 

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The reading material is, I dunno nothing really to compare to but doesn’t look out of the ordinary. 

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Cigars are a bit banged up but overall ok. Standard cuban 😂

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Bands seem to be legit but the glowing squares under UV are the 38-47rg band and not the 50rg as these should be. All other hologram and micro print is fine. Real bands I think.

The warranty seal code and micro print is fine and checks out on the habanos site. However under UV light the stamp revealed a code “00027”. Not supposed to be there. This seems to be a common thing on fakes. 


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So what’s going on? 

Most likely boxes (low quality and probably why these were scrapped) and bands were stolen, box filled with backyard specials, and flipped. 

 

Most interesting points are that without the box you’d not know they are fake. The seal is spot on from what I can see apart from the minor UV detail. 99.999% of people would just say “yep, something glows, it’s legit”. The code isn’t even that easy to see. My takeaway from this is we've got no chance in the current fake market. I mean if they can print seals with near perfection, then really what can't they do? For was a bit of a scary take away. Only buy from legit vendors of course, don't rely on habanos website, and carry a UV light everywhere with you 🤣

Anyway for those curious as to what you get when you see these on Facebook. Now you know. 

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Yikes.  That is scary.  If counterfeiters are able to reproduce the bands, boxes, etc to such a high degree then the hobby is in trouble.  And given the recent Cohiba/Trinidad premium pricing, the payoff for faking high end offerings is even larger.  Did you cut a cigar open Mus?  To check if the cigars are broadleaf or loose filler? 

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 I think bands have been stolen. Boxes were probably the boxes in factories that have now been discarded for the new boxes being made or whatever the story. 

the seal shocks me though. They can print any number they want and they just have to find one that is a number on the HSA database. The only difference I can see when side by side comparing is that the seal is a slightly lighter shade of green and not “dark” as the real one. Like photocopy quality loss. But i certainly can’t tell from just looking at it. And to be honest my first impression of the seal was “ohh maybe they put a new security feature on these new fancy cigars. Makes sense”. But obviously wrong. First time in history fakes have more features than the originals 😂 

not cut one. I doubt it’d be short filler. I’ve put in a fraud claim on my card and waiting for that to process. Once that’s all clear will cut one and smoke some novedosos yard cigars like the baller that I am 😂

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Man those are definitely some high quality fakes. Scary to think about all the details they managed to get; I'd say a good proportion of buyers would just assume they're legit. Now with the new luxury pricing in affect, I'm going to assume that we're going to be seeing more and more of this on cohiba. Regardless, some real good detective work sir. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Cigar_salute came out with these findings on a wonderful YouTube video earlier this year.  Many people in the community worked tirelessly to track down where these were coming from.  

Its not just Novedosas that have these, many different higher end cohibas and other top shelf items.  Many other sequences where found as well but all obviously copied over from the micro print. 
 

gotta give credit where credit is due.  

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