Any one seen this Partagás Band?

[Trevor2118]

Picked up a Partagás Aluminum Pack of 5 Eminentes (discontinued 1980s) that still contained 4 (unsmokable) cigars that that had the following band under (ie covered by) a standard Partagás band.

Anyone seen this before?

[coneatty]

Trevor, I have never seen a band like that before...But, I have to highjack this thread a bit to tell you that I discovered cubancigarwebsite.com today, and have just spent a most enjoyable and informative 2 hours on your website. No doubt you have heard this a thousand times, but what an incredible resource you provide. I am totally blown away by the amount of information in your site, the fine and ordered presentation...The photos...ease of use... I could go on. Major, MAJOR Kudos for a wonderful job well done!

[Colt45]

Trev, probably not overly helpful, but check this thread posted by J2:

Link

[Trevor2118]

Some further information on the cigars:

The Eminentes are supposed to be a 44 x 132 machine made cigars.

The cigars in the tin are definitely handmade and are currently sub 42 ring (obviously shrinkage has occurred).

Series B2 were 42 x 156 handmade. I am wondering if some Serie B2's were cut down and re banded.

According to the MRN book, the red Series bands (that we know today) were introduced in the mid 1930s, so the subject band could? be date before that.

[Puros Y Vino]

Trevor, I have never seen a band like that before...But, I have to highjack this thread a bit to tell you that I discovered cubancigarwebsite.com today, and have just spent a most enjoyable and informative 2 hours on your website. No doubt you have heard this a thousand times, but what an incredible resource you provide. I am totally blown away by the amount of information in your site, the fine and ordered presentation...The photos...ease of use... I could go on. Major, MAJOR Kudos for a wonderful job well done!

X2. I haven't properly given my thanks for all your hard work. Your site should be required reading by all Cuban Cigar lovers worldwide.

[Trevor2118]

Trev, probably not overly helpful, but check this thread posted by J2:

Link

Ross, yes appears it may be something similar. I read MRN's comments regarding these bands.

I had already sent MRN an email to see what he knows about this band. I will post his comments when I get his reply.

Regards, Trevor.

[MontrealRon]

This seems to be a tax stamp, rather than a band.

(0.80 cents tax per cigar).

This is surely pre-1960.

While I have no personal experience with these, I do recall seeing/hearing of these before.

[Ken Gargett]

Ross, yes appears it may be something similar. I read MRN's comments regarding these bands.

I had already sent MRN an email to see what he knows about this band. I will post his comments when I get his reply.

Regards, Trevor.

for anything like that, i always suggest that they ask trev. but that probably won't help here.

[Trevor2118]

for anything like that, i always suggest that they ask trev. but that probably won't help here.

Helpful as always Ken.......thanks!

[Ken Gargett]

Helpful as always Ken.......thanks!

trev, think nothing of it. really, absolutely nothing.

[Trevor2118]

This seems to be a tax stamp, rather than a band.

This is surely pre-1960.

Yes, I think this is probably what the band is.

The other part of the question is what is a Series B No.2 tax stamp doing on an Eminentes cigar (Of course, someone may have trimmed down the B2's to fit the Aluminum Pack to use as a travel humidor).

[steve047]

scroll down

http://www.cubancigarwebsite.com/brand.asp...ag|as#Eminentes

[Fuzz]

scroll down

http://www.cubancigarwebsite.com/brand.asp...ag|as#Eminentes

Directing Trev to his own website?

No offense dude, but I find that absolutely hilarious!

[Trevor2118]

I have now received several emails from MRN who has supplied the following information:

The best advice is that these are tax stamps, introduced in 1939 to collect taxes on domestic cigars, and their use was discontinued in 1976.

They were for cigars sold within Cuba for non-State owned private businesses. Not many Cuban people had the privilege to sell cigars within Cuba outside of the State business so this explains why these stamps are extremely rare.

Private enterprises which bought cigars from the State Monopoly and sold these cigars within Cuba had to pay tax in advance by buying these tax stamps from the Cuban Government (in addition to the already heavy existing taxes).

To prevent tax evasion each cigar being sold had to display this tax band underneath the cigar band.

The excuse for this tax was indeed attributed to the loan of 35,000,000 Cuban Pesos Cuba borrowed from the US in 1939.

The “Impuesto del Emprestitito $ 35.000.000 1939” reference refers to a 1939 US loan to Cuba of 35,000,000 Cuban Pesos to help out its financial difficulty. At the time the Cuban Peso was pegged to the US$ so it was equal to the same amount in US Dollars.

This tax stamp ceased to exist in 1976 when Cuba officially declared default on this loan.

MRN also forwarded images of a very similar band on some Consuegras Cremas.

From this it is apparent that the text “Serie B No. 2” refers (probably) to the tax band type and not to a Partagas Serie B2 cigar as I had earlier thought.

I have attached some photos of those cigars.

[Ken Gargett]

trev, terrific stuff.

[First Lady]

what a classic soon MRN will be coming to you Trevor for information

[Wicky]

Outstanding work Trevor.

[mkz]

Wow! Great stuff Trev!!

[laficion]

Fantastic Trevor

Great job that you're doing ,Thanks and Bravo !!!!

[CanuckSARTech]

Awesome. If we don't have MRN on this board, it's great that we have a couple of extremely knowledgeable souls (yourself, Trevor, and Nino, for examples), who also can bend the ear of MRN to sort out some of these finer intracacies. This sort of knowledge seeking and information sharing is what makes this such a fun and rewarding activity.

Well done, Trevor and MRN. Thanks for sharing!

[Dbone]

Great detective work, Trevor

[Trevor2118]

what a classic soon MRN will be coming to you Trevor for information

MRN is a regular user of my website.

He has stated that "........ as I am using you site when working on my next MRN book. Saves me a great deal of time."

He has also very generously granted formal authorization for me to use any of his photos from the current MRN book in my Website.

His gracious support is greatly appreciated.

[sblevit]

Is there any information on when MRN's update of the Encyclopedia is coming out?

[FireDigger]

Hi Trevor, speaking of tax stamps, it reminded me of tobacco/cigar revenue stamps. I learned it is collected in the philately community and was wondering if you collect them?

[cigarros]

Gents! Thanks so much for your work! Stunning investigation!