Beautiful Old Barrel: Partagas Majestuosos

[99call]

On 8/9/2024 at 11:37 PM, NSXCIGAR said:

There's no authentication that goes on there and usually only one photo per listing

This is nonsense. I've personally seen Mitchell's reference library of historic original catalogues, old paper auction brochures, and rare cigar reference books. It's far more extensive and comprehensive than what is on CCW.

[99call]

15 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

600 or 700

So did you actually watch the video with Derek Harris? Or did you just ignore it out of hand?

If you did watch it, it would very easily dawn on you that just in the category of relabelled of bi-labelled cigars...600 would be a low-ball figure. 

Let's take the catalogue page from 'The Cigar Club" as an example.

If you look at this it's very easy see that the re-labelling exercise would have worked like this:

Selection No 10 = Coronas Extra

Selection No 20 = Petit Coronas

Selection No 30 = Coronas Junior

Selection No 40 = Regentes

Who knows how this would have worked.  Derek Harris seems to suggest the additional labels were available to do in store by themselves. Maybe they ordered 50/50 direct from Cuba. Maybe this was a sort of in house PSP programme.   

Either way,  it DID!!!!! exist. And then  you extrapolate that programme over London. It's not just Dunhill or JJ Fox or the other 100 cigar merchants in London at the time. It's The Ritz, Fortnum and Mason, Selfridges, Marks and Spencers 100's of high end high street shops. It's Gentleman's outfitters, it's Worshipful Societies, it's Masonic halls, it's Banks, it's hairdressers for gods sake!!!. Then don't just include London, include the whole of the UK,  then Europe. Every shop would only have to sell 1 box, to easily hit the number of 600 and well, well over it. 

Also we see on The Cigar Club list "Royals." This isn't the 'Royal Dukes', it's a completely separate cigar that doesn't appear in any of the main catalogues as far as can see. This would add to a tally in category 3. This is just 1 cigar merchant out of 100's in London at the time.  

Lastly. Have you ever lived in a house with a coal fire? I have. Throughout the whole of the 60's, 70's and some of the 80's, the majority of the UK had open coal fires.    During this time it would be habitual to put absolutely anything that would burn, into the fire. And I mean anything. There were largely two choices. The fire, or the compost heap. If you didn't burn things you were seen to be wasteful. Interestingly, whenever you see stamp collections or coin collections (small item collections in general),  they are often in very interesting cigar boxes. This would have been one of the only reasons to keep a cigar box back then. Because it was more specific use than heat. 

Just like Alex, this is the last I'll say on the matter, as it'a like smashing your head against a brick wall, and a massive waste of time. 

[Jack]

19 hours ago, 99call said:

Just like Alex, this is the last I'll say on the matter, as it'a like smashing your head against a brick wall, and a massive waste of time. 

Cheers to that M8, learned not to engage ages ago.

[NSXCIGAR]

On 8/9/2024 at 10:20 PM, ATGroom said:

I've also spoken at length with MRN about the resources he used to prepare his first book, and what he had planned for his second, so I know how much he knew was omitted from the first one.

I would certainly defer to this for if MRN has acknowledged his omissions to you then that's good enough for me. I assume you got a reasonably fair handle on the number of omissions and it is in the hundreds.

[Jack]

I'd rather be part of the solution, so here are my additions. One is unmarked, other than "Hecho en Cuba". The other has the Jose Gener... logo. What was more interesting to me is the amount of cedar sheets in both. I'm trying to visualize how they would have been fitted among the cigars. Possibly not original, but two examples that are similar. Ignore the Tronque, it just slipped into the photo due to proximity. Also massive apologies for not finding a better time of day for the photos.

[99call]

4 hours ago, Jack said:

Possibly not original

Shouldn't think so. I think it would just be the past owners choice for cedar spill storage. Were they from different sellers?

[Jack]

41 minutes ago, 99call said:

Shouldn't think so.  I think it would just be the past owners choice for cedar spill storage.  Were they from different sellers?

Purchases were decades apart, and from different sellers, so it set me to thinking about it.  I would suspect your answer is correct, but it did seem odd that both came with them.

Ah yes, "Cubatabaco, Luxurious Cabinets", my favorite picture book!

[99call]

3 hours ago, Jack said:

Purchases were decades apart, and from different sellers, so it set me to thinking about it.  I would suspect your answer is correct, but it did seem odd that both came with them.

Ah yes, "Cubatabaco, Luxurious Cabinets", my favorite picture book!

Very interesting. My only other thought would be that they were packers. Does the inside thick inner come out? If there is a gap between that and the inner skin of the barrel. Maybe the were to pack that void out..who knows? Very interesting.

[99call]

Maybe they were wrapped like Davidoff ambassadrice cabs. But it was a much longer cedar wrap?

 

 

[ATGroom]

3 hours ago, 99call said:

Very interesting. My only other thought would be that they were packers. Does the inside thick inner come out? If there is a gap between that and the inner skin of the barrel. Maybe the were to pack that void out..who knows? Very interesting.

I'm pretty sure the barrel cigars came wrapped in cedar in exactly the same way as Noella's Jars (and most every other jar) do today. The purpose of the sheet is to keep the cigars in a tight bunch so you can get them into the jar/barrel without damaging the feet. The broken 'spills' would just be the remains of that sheet.

Unfortunately I don't have a barrel myself and my pic doesn't show the sheet so I can't totally confirm it, but I don't see how they would get them into the barrel reliably without something like that.

[Jack]

8 hours ago, 99call said:

Very interesting. My only other thought would be that they were packers. Does the inside thick inner come out? If there is a gap between that and the inner skin of the barrel. Maybe the were to pack that void out..who knows? Very interesting.

Appears quite solid. I believe Mr.Groom has the most likely answer. As can be seen in the photos the cedar sheets are quite a bit shorter than the barrelito interior so they're not readily apparent in a full one.

5 hours ago, ATGroom said:

I'm pretty sure the barrel cigars came wrapped in cedar in exactly the same way as Noella's Jars (and most every other jar) do today. The purpose of the sheet is to keep the cigars in a tight bunch so you can get them into the jar/barrel without damaging the feet. The broken 'spills' would just be the remains of that sheet.

Unfortunately I don't have a barrel myself and my pic doesn't show the sheet so I can't totally confirm it, but I don't see how they would get them into the barrel reliably without something like that.

Cheers! Thank you!

[Fugu]

11 hours ago, 99call said:

Maybe they were wrapped like Davidoff ambassadrice cabs. But it was a much longer cedar wrap?

Those were wrapped in a strip of leaf sheath from the Royal palm.

[99call]

Just now, Fugu said:

Those were wrapped in a strip of leaf sheath from the Royal palm.

Very cool, much appreciated 

[Reuben]

On 8/7/2024 at 10:26 PM, 99call said:

You're "Punch Rayados" seemed to exist in the same era as the rest of these names.

What great pics!  Wow I'm impressed. 

[99call]

1 hour ago, Reuben said:

What great pics!  Wow I'm impressed. 

Not mine. To my knowledgeable cache from a UK tobacconist.

[ATGroom]

If this is now a thread of generally barrel shaped things, I'll post these.

Marble jars. The dark one has Cubatabaco cigars in it same as the barrel I posted above.

The light one has Cohiba banded cigars of a size forgotten to history. 

Weigh a tonne. I guess similarish construction to a Nacional ashtray.

 

[Habanoschris]

5 hours ago, ATGroom said:

generally barrel shaped things

🤣

I saw these on your IG previously, amazing bit of history 👌

[Jack]

21 hours ago, ATGroom said:

If this is now a thread of generally barrel shaped things, I'll post these.

Marble jars. The dark one has Cubatabaco cigars in it same as the barrel I posted above.

The light one has Cohiba banded cigars of a size forgotten to history. 

Weigh a tonne. I guess similarish construction to a Nacional ashtray.

Curious if they were catalogued?  With no markings the chance of finding one out in the wild seems slim.

The barrelitos were hard enough to find, these are like a grain of sand on the beach - if empty I mean.

[GP012]

3 hours ago, Jack said:

Curious if they were catalogued?  With no markings the chance of finding one out in the wild seems slim.

The barrelitos were hard enough to find, these are like a grain of sand on the beach - if empty I mean.

There’s a test print floating around from MRN’s second edition showing a Cubatabaco International magazine/catalog from 1986 with a marble jar on the cover.

[Jack]

18 minutes ago, GP012 said:

There’s a test print floating around from MRN’s second edition showing a Cubatabaco International magazine/catalog from 1986 with a marble jar on the cover.

Cheers!  Thank you!

[ATGroom]

4 hours ago, GP012 said:

There’s a test print floating around from MRN’s second edition showing a Cubatabaco International magazine/catalog from 1986 with a marble jar on the cover.

Here it is.

I can say with total certainty that he knew about jars with Cohiba banded cigars in them, so why he wrote that only Cubatabaco banded ones exist is sadly a mystery he has taken with him.

[99call]

Not posting this for any other reason, other than its always nice to see this series from Hoyo crop up. 

[99call]

I also noticed Bonvin's seem to have recently updated their website, and they've put up a cool collage of their other commissioned boxes, including 'PL Pequenos'. Very cool!

[99call]

Very interesting to see this. 

A, There was also a 'Punch Curzon No 1'. which would suggest it was a UK Cinema offering their own selection, shows how widespread this was.

B, On this box, you can see it's been over-stickered twice. There are three name stickers here in total. 

[ATGroom]

9 hours ago, 99call said:

Very interesting to see this. 

A, There was also a 'Punch Curzon No 1'. which would suggest it was a UK Cinema offering their own selection, shows how widespread this was.

B, On this box, you can see it's been over-stickered twice. There are three name stickers here in total. 

 

Interesting. Don't have anything to add on the labels, but I can tell you that the 4063 stamp indicates that this was imported by Hunters and left their bonded warehouse in June 1974.