Ken Gargett Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 My Cuban deep throat has reported back. He has spoken with Manuel García himself, his Commercial Vice President, and the story is that only two boxes of these new LE’s were taken to CDH Tijuana, signed by Manuel himself, and given out there as gifts. So if anyone has one of these from Tijuana, every chance they are fakes (unless they came from one of those two boxes). The bad news for us was that he then came on to Sydney but had none left for us. If anyone does have any from Tijuana (not from the signed gift boxes obviously), Habanos would love to know exactly where you got them. If we can help them, they’ll help us. The good news is that these are now available in Havana so if anyone has picked them up there, please give us a report. They will hit Europe in 15 days. For what it is worth, Habanos consider Tijuana a major source of fakes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thschrminm Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 I am a little confused... Garcia was just at the LCDH in Tijuana for the annual visit and as you mentioned there were some boxes that he brought with him of the MAG50s along with P2's and PSD4 Reservas of which from what I have read on other sites he only brought 2 boxes of... Garcia is HABANOS S.A. and he was just there while some of the MAG50's were sold to clients... How is it that the VP was just there and now Habanos wants to know if anybody bought suspect MAG50s from them... I would tell HABANOS S.A. TO ASK MANUEL GARCIA about it! The LCDH has had alot of controversy in the past and I would hope that HABANOS would finally put to rest the rumors by either supporting them or shutting them down if there really are fakes coming out of an official LCDH... If you cannot get a real Habano from a franchised store how can HABANOS S.A. guarantee authenticity from anywhere else??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoatLocker Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 » For what it is worth, Habanos consider Tijuana a major source of fakes. You can't walk 1 block in TJ without being offered "cuban" cigars. Plenty of glass top cohibas available too... So, looks like the ones with brown bands are being called fakes or grey market? Anyone know where these brown banded cigars came from? I know the ones in the signed boxes at LCDH had the red bands. I hope these are going to be priced "reasonably" when they hit the shops in europe. :-P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoCalSmoker Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 Here is my take on this situation: Manuel Garcia's response to your Habano's man was the Habanos' party line but may not be necessarily all he knows. Yes he took two mag 50 boxes to the LCDH TJ and signed one for my friend. After Manuel Garcia left, David brought in 20 additional boxes (40 more are on their way now) which M. Garcia was probably aware of but could not respond to your deep throat with knowledge that he knew about them. It would cause an uproar with other LCDH's if they thought Habanos SA condonned this practice. This is partially supposition on my part but I believe to be true. David, the owner of the LCDH has certain connections and pull that no other LCDH has. He always gets the new stuff before it is officially released and available to other LCDH's. I think these extra boxes are the real deal, regardless of any shady dealings (fakes in his inventory, etc.)that may be part of David's past. This is merely my own opinion based on what I've heard from my sources. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoatLocker Posted June 22, 2005 Share Posted June 22, 2005 I think you are probably right SoCalSmoker. I could swear I saw a big stack of both Reservas and Mag EL's when I went the week after Manuel's visit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ken Gargett Posted June 23, 2005 Author Share Posted June 23, 2005 apologies if what i posted was confusing. i have no idea about the P2's and PSD4 on the occasion but my mate in havana did ask manuel garcia about the upmann mag 50's. garcia told him that he took with him only two boxes of the upmann mag 50's to tijuana. he signed these two boxes. he told my mate that they were taken to tijuana as gifts - i assumed for the storeowner but possibly for clients. if for the storeowner, then he may have on sold them but according to garcia himself, there could have only been two boxes of the real thing come from that store at that time. habanos is always trying to catch anyone selling fakes which is why my mate asked about where anyone else got these from in tijuana. i did not get the impression that he was suggesting the store itself was selling fakes (unless they have sold more than two boxes) but that they wanted to know if they were coming from somewhere else. as you could imagine, over here we are removed from what might be happening in tijuana so i have no idea if there have been problems in the past with this store and have never heard anything but agree totally that you need to be able to be certain that you are getting the real thing if in an authorised store. otherwise, we may as well all give up. other than our friend who kicked all this off, did anyone else on the forum get these from tijuana? if anyone did, perhaps we can help stop this in future if we can let habanos know. i guess the other thing to note is that if either this place (and i am not suggesting they were) or anyone else over there was flogging fake LE upmann mag 50's then they would be pretty dumb to do it while the VP was actually there. surely they would wait until he flies out - which would be why they are now asking. sorry - just also seen socal's post - that could well be the case and if so, then i suspect we have gone about as far with it as we can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmos Posted June 23, 2005 Share Posted June 23, 2005 Yet another reason to avoid TJ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Prince Posted July 3, 2005 Share Posted July 3, 2005 » Yet another reason to avoid TJ. Exactly. This guy is getting just as bad as CTO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loki Posted September 8, 2005 Share Posted September 8, 2005 not to change the subject but when I was at the LCDH Athens I made a purchase, cigars were fine, but upon my arrival home the credit card bill wasn't. The LCDH charged my credit card (10 minutes later) with another amount. I had to dispute the charge as fraudulent and it was removed. Damn shady shop owners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elric Posted September 8, 2005 Share Posted September 8, 2005 As I'm sure many of you know LCDH TJ sent an e-mail out right after Manuel Garcia was there offerings Mag 50s at $399 shipped. I didn't bite but I'm sure many did. If you are one of those guys drop an email to Ken or Rob and tell them about the sticks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginseng Posted November 15, 2005 Share Posted November 15, 2005 » » For what it is worth, Habanos consider Tijuana a major source of fakes. » » You can't walk 1 block in TJ without being offered "cuban" cigars. Plenty » of glass top cohibas available too... » This must give Habanos fits. There's probably nothing they can do about it either, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shiba Posted January 14, 2006 Share Posted January 14, 2006 » » » For what it is worth, Habanos consider Tijuana a major source of » fakes. » » » » You can't walk 1 block in TJ without being offered "cuban" cigars. » Plenty » » of glass top cohibas available too... » » » » » This must give Habanos fits. There's probably nothing they can do about it » either, right? Anyone... Anyone??? I would like to know as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
novasurf Posted January 14, 2006 Share Posted January 14, 2006 "I wish I was in, Tijuana, eating BBQ iguana"..... Wall of Voodoo rawks! Fakes? Yer kidding!!?? Treasure your good sources. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexgtp Posted February 17, 2006 Share Posted February 17, 2006 » "I wish I was in, Tijuana, eating BBQ iguana"..... » Wall of Voodoo rawks! » » Fakes? Yer kidding!!?? » Treasure your good sources. Interesting reading. I was lucky enough to pick some out when they first came out from a very trusted vendor.. Now my dilemma was how long to let them rest 2 yrs??:-D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tey Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 » For what it is worth, Habanos consider Tijuana a major source of fakes. shh, whatever. I was able to pick up 3 boxes of cohiba LE 2012 petit corona gordas in TJ. Your just jealous Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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