Blue dots on Cohibas

[Edicion]

From the web. True or not? And is it only Cohiba that has this feature? Keen to learn more. 

[nKostyan]

For me, gluing bands at the photo looks unnatural. Looks like fake. Of course, this happens when the factory has run out of bands of the right size. I've never seen four dots in a row before.... There is no difficulty in fake UV-dots and inscriptions. I have repeatedly seen such fakes.
As for the dots, they first appeared at Cohiba Talisman EL 2017. At the end of 2019, they began to meet on regular vitolas. But these were double dots...
I couldn't find these posts on the forum, but they were.
P.S. Found it https://www.friendsofhabanos.com/forum/topic/143004-behike-uv-bands/?do=findComment&comment=1010263

[Ryan]

Somebody, somebody who knows how to buy real cigars in Cuba, gave me this cigar, from a box, in Havana last month. No blue dots but this shows up under UV, not at all visible under natural, visible light.  What do people here think? Are these numbers being faked yet?

[nKostyan]

Somebody, somebody who knows how to buy real cigars in Cuba, gave me this cigar, from a box, in Havana last month. No blue dots but this shows up under UV, not at all visible under natural, visible light.  What do people here think? Are these numbers being faked yet?

The numbers can faked, I've seen a band with numbers, but the profile of the native and the holograms are terrible. Blue dots are often hidden under gluing

[Ryan]

8 minutes ago, nKostyan said:

The numbers can faked, I've seen a band with numbers, but the profile of the native and the holograms are terrible. Blue dots are often hidden under gluing

Here’s a natural light picture of the same band. If it’s fake, it’s worrying.

[Ryan]

Here’s a few angles in natural light. I think the video has to be downloaded to play.

[nKostyan]

Recently I have been additionally using a microscope for a smartphone

Here the blue dots were hidden under the gluing

[Fuzz]

Plume glows under UV light, doesn't it....

[Nevrknow]

2 hours ago, Fuzz said:

Plume glows under UV light, doesn't it....

I hope so. I store mine under UV light. Going for the "added value". 🤣🤣🤣

[Edicion]

10 hours ago, Ryan said:

Here’s a natural light picture of the same band. If it’s fake, it’s worrying.

Looks very authentic to my untrained eyes

[Edicion]

14 hours ago, nKostyan said:

For me, gluing bands at the photo looks unnatural. Looks like fake. Of course, this happens when the factory has run out of bands of the right size. I've never seen four dots in a row before.... There is no difficulty in fake UV-dots and inscriptions. I have repeatedly seen such fakes.
As for the dots, they first appeared at Cohiba Talisman EL 2017. At the end of 2019, they began to meet on regular vitolas. But these were double dots...
I couldn't find these posts on the forum, but they were.
P.S. Found it https://www.friendsofhabanos.com/forum/topic/143004-behike-uv-bands/?do=findComment&comment=1010263

Thank you @nKostyan. So I take it there is no truth (at least at the moment) in that the blue dots will or should appear on Cohibas to be real? 

[Bijan]

It's always possible to put real bands on a fake cigar, so these tests can prove that a cigar is fake but can't prove that it is real. As the article on CCW says, pretty much every test for fake cigars only helps to determine if a cigar is fake, there's really no sure way to know it is real:

https://www.cubancigarwebsite.com/cigar/fakes

To quote:

"

Again....to be totally clear:

If a cigar passes a test, that does not prove it is genuine. Ultimately, nothing can ever prove a cigar is genuine.

If a cigar fails a definitive test, that is normally sufficient to prove it is a fake.

If a cigar fails a indicative test, that does not prove it is a fake, but enough "fails" should raise a reasonable doubt as to the authenticity of the cigars."

[nKostyan]

Thank you [mention=31765]nKostyan[/mention]. So I take it there is no truth (at least at the moment) in that the blue dots will or should appear on Cohibas to be real? 

Personally, I feel about it like this:
- there are no dots - the reason to be alert and pick up a microscope;
- there are dots - this does not mean that the band is original.

[ATGroom]

In my observation, the "far dots", ie, two diagonal blue dots on the 2nd and 3rd row a long way from the head is on the large ring 48-54 sized band.

The "close dots", ie four diagonal dots on the third thru sixth rows in close to the head is on the smaller gauge 38-47 band.

Could be mistaken in this as sample size is quite small.

Also, it is very frequent in Cohiba that a big band is trimmed and used on a smaller cigar. Normally they trim from the right side, which removes the UV batch code. Also in this case, often the far dots are now covered by the overlap of the band.

So, that is very key if you are about to complain to a vendor about their cigars cigars being fake as they don't have blue dots - check if the band has been trimmed first as that removes or hides this test in many cases.

The dots and code appear from 2017 onwards, and should not be visible in natural light.

 

This image was sent to me recently - a microscope image of the band of an otherwise perfect seeming BHK box:

 

Genuine should look like this:

 

It's the first time I've ever heard of fakers replicating the microprinting, albeit not as small as the genuine, but still it shows that the producers of these fake bands are working with extremely sophisticated high quality printing equipment.

If they can fake that then a few UV fluorescent dots should be trivial.