Missing Warranty Seal?

[Ginseng]

I was recently contacted by a member who was concerned about the authenticity of two boxes of cigars that were recently purchased from a vendor (not CZ) that is generally regarded as highly reputable. Prior to today, I was not aware of any credible reports of counterfeit goods coming from this vendor. After I completed this analysis, this vendor's record remains unblemished.

Yesterday I received the cab of RASS and the dressed box of Juan Lopez Petit Coronas and I immediately put them under the blacklight. My first reaction was "oh my goodness, the coat of arms really is missing." I then pulled out the 10X loupe to check the microprinting and other features of the seal. Everything checked out exactly as expected.

Perplexed, I looked over the boxes again, then turned off all the basement lights and whipped out the blacklight once more. This time, under darker viewing conditions, I could just barely make out the faint pattern of the Cuban coat of arms. I then set out to try and capture photographically this ghostly image. After many attempts, I was able to capture a head on view of the seal which contained enough of a latent image to bring out through heavy image processing. I cropped the original image and started to work.

Here is what the image of the seal looks like under long wavelength UV light. Aside from the color cast, this is exactly what it looked like under fluorescent room lighting. As you can see, the image of the UV fluorescent coat of arms is practically invisible.

Now here is the same image but after the first wave of image processing. I adjusted color channels and carried out color involution to reveal the distinctive design of the coat of arms. Ah ha! it was there after all.

Now after one more wave of noise reduction and radical levels adjustment, we arrive at the final rendering. Here we see, in false color, the detailed outline of the Cuban coat of arms in all its glory.

Ok, so if the image was there all the time, why was it so damned hard to see? There are two reasons. First, as I noticed in late 2006, the Cubans had begun to use a new kind of paper stock, one which was no longer free of optical brighteners. Common office copy paper is loaded with optical brighteners. These compounds are added to the paper formulation to enhance the blue-whiteness of paper and make it appear cleaner, brighter. Unfortunately, they function by absorbing ultraviolet light and downshifting frequency into the visible part of the spectrum and re-emitting it as blue-white light.

Prior to late 2006, the paper stock that Cuba had been using was unusual in that it was quite white but without the virtue of UV-active optical brighteners. Sort of like currency or stamp stock. After this time period, they switched to a stock that glowed bright white under longwave UV. And here's the worst part...this stock is now for all intents and purposes indistinguishable from the stock used on numerous and common counterfeit Habanos. The extreme UV fluorescence of this new stock "washes out" the pale, dim coat of arms making it, in the best of cases, vaguely detectable. In the worst of cases, it is invisible.

Here's what a seal on the new paper (the specimen under investigation) and one on the old paper look like compared side-by-side. The "old" reference at the top is a seal from the PGT JUN06 code.

Now here's a comparison of an authentic box of Habanos and a box of fakes from a Canadian vendor.

The second reason that this coat of arms was so hard to see is that printing variations do occur and the coats of arms on these two boxes were printed on the extreme light end of the spectrum. Light density of the coat of arms printing coupled with the brightness of the paper stock = damned hard to see.

So, in summation. These two boxes from the vendor in question are legitimate (I also examined two specimen cigars from each box) and his reputation continues unblemished.

Wilkey

[zuma]

Hombre! Thanks for such a detailed post... I hope someone at Habanos S.A. takes note and remedies the problem (though I would imagine that it would have to do more with a Cuban governmental entity than with Habanos alone)...

[Taino]

The CIA couldn't have done it better!

Very nice review.

[El Presidente]

Simply in awe

I have forwarded the link and a covering e-mail to Habanos s.a.

[Miami101]

Good information:

[gehrig24]

Always impressed with your detail. Thank you for sharing this information.

[Ginseng]

» I have forwarded the link and a covering e-mail to Habanos s.a.

Hi Rob,

I'd be very interested to hear what they have to say, if anything. In months and recent years past, discerning the presence of the UV coat-of-arms (COA) and its design and quality was a useful first line tactic in investigating purported counterfeits. Howver, with the advent of this new fluorescent paper, the game has changed somewhat for the casual student of Habanos. I say for the hobbyist because while the inexpensive UV sources we have at our disposal emit a fairly broad range of UV making the COA and paper glow with comparable intensity, this may not be the case with those in the industry who are tasked with quality control or policing.

I use a $20 handheld lamp used for examining stamps for UV watermarks. Other inexpensive UV lamps for the detection of animal urine stains on carpet and upholstery can be found at the pet shop. They're useful, but rather blunt instruments.

It is entirely possible that the COA ink and the paper have overlapping but distinct fluorescence curves. In other words, one might fluoresce strongly under bombardment from light in one region of the UV spectrum while the other might be most active in a another region. Please refer to the following hypothetical illustration.

In this hypothetical example, the red lin represents the fluorescence curve of the COA ink while the blue line represents the seal paper. The closer to 100% on the Y-axis, the more brightly the glow.

Under UV illumination at wavelength "A" or roughly 360 nanometers, the COA ink would glow brightly (85%) but the seal paper would glow faintly (10%). Conversely, at point "C" or 420 nm, the paper would glow brightly (80%) while the COA would be dim by comparison (<10%).

At point "B," however, the COA and the base paper glow with equal intensity making the COA very hard to see. I believe that with the UV sources commonly available to the hobbyist, this is the situation we are facing. Now, if I had a narrow-band UV source with peak emission in the 350-360 nm range (such as short-wavelength UV LED) then there would be no problem at all.

Typically, if I were on the manufacturing end, I'd try to design measures that were easy and robust to assess by legitimate investigators but damned hard for knock-off artists and the like. In this case, I can't say whether the present situation is a result of oversight or specific intent.

Wilkey