Vintage Cubans Up For Online Auction
The auction is open and online bids are being accepted for more than 300 lots of vintage Cuban cigars, but you'd better get your bids in soon—it ends on June 11. Held by C.Gars Ltd. in the U.K., the online auction includes pre-embargo releases, perennial favorites such as Davidoffs and Dunhills, limited editions and a few obscure, long discontinued cigars nearly lost to antiquity.
One of the most notable (and most expensive) lots is a cabinet of 500 Punch Coronas pre-dating the embargo. It has a pre-sale estimate of £40,500 to £49,500 (about $52,171 to $63,766). If that's out of your price range, a 100-count cabinet of pre-embargo Partagás No. III coronas is listed with estimates of £9,500 to £10,500 ($12,238 to $13,526). And while an intact cabinet of 60 Dunhill Special Selección No. 415 coronas is expected to fetch at least £6,000 ($7,729), bidding for a Partagás 155th Anniversary humidor from 2000 is starting at no less than £12,000 ($15,469).
Cuban Davidoffs tend to be some of the most sought-after smokes in the world of vintage cigars, and this auction contains 10 Davidoff lots, including a sealed box of Château Yquem cigars from the 1980s. Bidding for this box starts at £5,500 ($7,079), but C.Gars estimates the Château Yquems could sell for as much as £7,500 ($9,653). A box of 10 Churchill-sized Davidoff Dom Perignons is currently listing for £1,600 ($2,061), which breaks down to £160 or $206 per cigar. A full box of Chateau Latour coronas lists at £4,500 ($5,797).
Oddities also tend to pop up at auction. For example, an unusual box of Hoyo de Monterrey Cordon Rouge Selection cigars dating back to 1936 is starting at £1,600 ($2,059). The wooden box is adorned with a dark crimson sash across the top lid, and each cigar wears a similarly regal-looking band. It's a mixed box of 23 lonsdales and two coronas. Even odder, a single Partagás cigar called the Visible Inmenso measures 19 inches long with a 49 ring gauge. Believed to be from 1969, it comes in its own slide-lid cof n and glass tube. Starting bid for this nearly two-foot long novelty cigar is £300 ($387).
Although this auction is noticeably light on Dunhill proper branded cigars—a single Dunhill Havana Club is up for £160 ($206)—there are plenty of cigars released as Dunhill Selections, such as Montecristo, H. Upmann, La Corona, Cabañas, Don Candido and La Flor de Cuba.
This article first appeared in the June 6, 2017 issue of Cigar Insider.
