Rolled Gold
Nothing befits a dram more than a fine smoke. James Leavey advises where to buy the best cigars.
On 9 March 2000 at Christieâs in London, the hammer fell on 416 lots of âvintage cigarsâ, which ranged in age from 1930s to a box barely three years old. By the end of the day, the pre-sale estimates for Christieâs first auction devoted exclusively to cigars were exceeded by some £150,000 in a total take of just over £500,000. Christieâs also set a new world record price paid for one cigar at a public auction: £726 for a 9.5â x 60 ring gauge Hoyo Particulares.
One enthusiastic collector sold 198 boxes (over 4,500 cigars) from the 1980s, whose original purchase price in London was estimated at £25,000. Christieâs hammer price a decade or so later was £176,000.
Simon Chase, the marketing director of Hunters & Frankau, the UKâs main importer of Havanas, believes the current growing interest in vintage cigars can be traced back to 1995 when the US cigar boom was in full swing.
âIronically, although Americaâs cigar enthusiasts could read about Havanas in the pages of Cigar Aficionado magazine, they could not buy or smoke them, at least not legally. Then they realised that the American Embargo on Cuba did not extend to pre-Castro cigars (ie pre-1959).â
As a result, the worldâs cigar lovers found a lucrative market for those old boxes of Havanas they had been clinging on to all these years. This in turn spurred interest in more recent cigars, especially the larger Havanas, of which there has been a shortage for several years due to crop failures .....
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By James Leavey
Section : Whisky and Cigars
Page number : 70
