Cohiba and Trinidad is piling up in Cuba....

[benfica_77]

Some pictures (not mine) from Today at Plaza America 

Maybe these price increases are starting to catch up with supply....maybe if some boats with Chinese tourists might changes this but I hope not. 

[NSXCIGAR]

Siglo I-III and CCE is always around. You won't see much if anything larger. 

Trini is having major problems and was already piling up in Oct.

$40.25 for a Coloniales or $30 for a LGC Glorias or JL SE? 

[SCgarman]

Good. Let the supply increase and collect dust. Eventually the prices will be discounted. If Monte4 comes down to $200/box i might even pull the trigger. $300+ and they can keep it.

[NSXCIGAR]

1 hour ago, SCgarman said:

Good. Let the supply increase and collect dust.

I don't know what they're going to do with the small Cohiba. Nobody wanted it at $250 let alone $500. I can't imagine distributors are even taking it. 

Best we can hope for is the levy breaks and they relent with the prices at least for the small stuff. I would like to smoke another Siglo III at some point in my life. 

[benfica_77]

40 minutes ago, NSXCIGAR said:

I don't know what they're going to do with the small Cohiba. Nobody wanted it at $250 let alone $500. I can't imagine distributors are even taking it. 

Best we can hope for is the levy breaks and they relent with the prices at least for the small stuff. I would like to smoke another Siglo III at some point in my life. 

I'd like to buy more reyes, fundies and esmeraldas loll ...the wait continues

[Bigkahuna]

Trust me the Chinese locusts will swarm and consume every last box of them if allowed. We won’t see a downward price adjustment in our lives. They would discontinue sizes before discounting them. They have their cash locusts in China now. 

[SCgarman]

19 minutes ago, Bigkahuna said:

Trust me the Chinese locusts will swarm and consume every last box of them if allowed. We won’t see a downward price adjustment in our lives. They would discontinue sizes before discounting them. They have their cash locusts in China now. 

China's economy is only as good as the rest of the world. When people stop buying all their worthless junk, where will they get their money? Robbing banks? 😁

[Blakes]

2 hours ago, SCgarman said:

Good. Let the supply increase and collect dust. Eventually the prices will be discounted. If Monte4 comes down to $200/box i might even pull the trigger. $300+ and they can keep it.

+1

I haven't been able to bring myself to buy any PC's since they broke the $200 mark, and 90% of what I smoke is PC/Minuto.

[Ford2112]

Insane what prices are for Reyes and Coloniales. Too bad. I think it's a huge error on HSAs part.

[NweakO]

The world’s gone insane not just HSA. Where I live they’ve raised car insurances 300%!

It seems we are watching a car crash slowly and can’t seem to stop it on all levels.

[Arabian]

HSA is testing the water with the recent price increase. Why would 3rd party flippers get extra cash from willing buyers where HSA can squeeze them out and take all that margins?

Once these products sit for too long, then they might consider a price decrease, hopefully a substantial one. 

[RDB]

It seems pretty obvious to me that either the prices or the supply of these smaller format Cohiba and Trinidad should fall. If I was HSA, I’d start by reducing the supply.
 

The bigger stuff seems to be selling fine. Interesting that these shelves also show Sig IV on display though.

[ATGroom]

Genuine question which perhaps some old-timers might have an answer to: has there ever been a general price decrease of Habanos ever? Was there one in the late 90s when they were rolling tonnes and tonnes of dubious quality stock?

In any event, I doubt downward price adjustment will happen no matter how much Cohiba and Trinidad pile up. If the demand genuinely isn't there then it is very easy to shift production resources along to the cigars with the next highest ROI in the catalogue. There may be some small piles of certain sizes of Cohiba and Trinidad forming, but at current prices they are nowhere close to meeting demand on anything else.

I think at some point Cohiba and Trini are likely to get a revamp to make the product look like something worthy of $1000+ a box. Trinidad needs it urgently, but I think Cohiba will get it also before long. High quality boxes along the lines of BHK, Linea 1935, Oro etc across the range. Shiny gold bands. Foot bands. I think it likely that the smallest sizes will be cut with the revamps. Siglo I will be hard because it's part of a 'set', but I don't think they will feel too sentimental about cutting the Panetelas, Exquisitos, Reyes, and Coloniales.

[garbandz]

" Cohiba and Trini are likely to get a revamp to make the product look like something worthy of $1000+ a box "

 

they say you can't polish a turd, but YOU CAN ROLL IT IN GLITTER.......

 

In my opinion, there is NOTHING that will make these boxes worth $1000.00 each.

 

HSA has dug their own graves, let them sleep on that.

[havanaclub]

I was in Cuba Jan 1-8 and prices were all over the map. I have been many times and this was never the case as Hotel humidors would have the same prices as LCDHs, airport shops etc. This trip my hotel wanted 26.50USD a stick for Monte No2. They wanted 197USD a box for Upmann half Coronas. At the Varadero airport, the main shop was very thin and they didn’t want to sell a few boxes (one was monte no1). BBF at this shop was 365 a cab. I said to the lady “your prices have gone crazy”. She smiled and said yes, and they go up again in a few days!” I quickly realized she was likely not selling those boxes waiting for the hike in a day. You could get a box of Sig 1-VI, CoRo (1670usd), trinny esmeralda Topes coloniales etc no problem.
Another shop in the airport had most cohiba, esplendidos 3 packs and CoRo tubos. It seems they are selling these as singles due to the price. Espy single 97.70, CoRo tubo 69, medio 58.30. Hahahahaha Nobody is buying these things. Stock will grow and they will have to re-evaluate.
Luckily that shop was selling 315 BBF cabs (still almost double what they used to be (187ish) and 117 upmann half Coronas. What a mess. Below is a small humidor at a shop in Varadero airport.

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[helix]

Disgusting.  I am in the DR smoking excellent custom rolls from a small shop in PP. 6.30$ CAN. TORO size. Screw HSA!

[havanaclub]

I will also add, their Havana Club rum has reached Canadian LCBO heavily taxed prices too. I always grab a bottle at the airport but not this time. I looked at the price and turned to my son and laughed. I said, I can get this bottle cheaper in Canada with our outrageous liquor taxes too. Cuba has gone full milk it as they are holding on to survive unfortunately.


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[SCgarman]

2 hours ago, havanaclub said:

I will also add, their Havana Club rum has reached Canadian LCBO heavily taxed prices too. I always grab a bottle at the airport but not this time. I looked at the price and turned to my son and laughed. I said, I can get this bottle cheaper in Canada with our outrageous liquor taxes too. Cuba has gone full milk it as they are holding on to survive unfortunately.

The fact of the matter is no matter how high they raise cigar prices or rum or whatever else, that is not going to save their arses from what is going on there. 

[SigmundChurchill]

3 hours ago, ATGroom said:

Genuine question which perhaps some old-timers might have an answer to: has there ever been a general price decrease of Habanos ever? Was there one in the late 90s when they were rolling tonnes and tonnes of dubious quality stock?

In any event, I doubt downward price adjustment will happen no matter how much Cohiba and Trinidad pile up. If the demand genuinely isn't there then it is very easy to shift production resources along to the cigars with the next highest ROI in the catalogue. There may be some small piles of certain sizes of Cohiba and Trinidad forming, but at current prices they are nowhere close to meeting demand on anything else.

I think at some point Cohiba and Trini are likely to get a revamp to make the product look like something worthy of $1000+ a box. Trinidad needs it urgently, but I think Cohiba will get it also before long. High quality boxes along the lines of BHK, Linea 1935, Oro etc across the range. Shiny gold bands. Foot bands. I think it likely that the smallest sizes will be cut with the revamps. Siglo I will be hard because it's part of a 'set', but I don't think they will feel too sentimental about cutting the Panetelas, Exquisitos, Reyes, and Coloniales.

There were never general price decreases.  But keep in mind, the increases weren’t very dramatic back then either.  
 

The market was so much smaller that it was a completely different ballgame.  Back then, you could easily find whatever you wanted, and at reasonable markups that were pretty uniform across vendors.  Even “special” cigars were easy to find, and at the price they were supposed to be, not 3 or 4 times the announced release price.  
 

As a 53 year old, I can still remember when China was a 3rd world country.  In the 90s they were still an emerging market, so the average Chinese consumer hadn’t significantly entered the Cuban cigar market.  On top of that, there was no Facebook, with all the flippers screwing up the market.  Hell, for most of the 90s we didn’t have internet vendors to buy from.  As an American, I had to form relationships with European brick and mortar owners in order to have my cigars sent to me.

So in answer to your question, No. Nothing back then resembles what we are seeing today.

[Greenhorn2]

I hope they pile up in the floor so they have to stack them up and make bench seating out of them. 

[ha_banos]

Well if travel to Cuba is open and these are stacking up that's good. There are always people buying up large numbers of boxes from London these days. So wonder why they are sitting on the shelves in Cuba?

[TroutBum]

Maybe sometime like 2025 I can actually afford a box of Cohibas 😅

[Hammer Smokin']

10 hours ago, NweakO said:

The world’s gone insane not just HSA. Where I live they’ve raised car insurances 300%!

It seems we are watching a car crash slowly and can’t seem to stop it on all levels.

it's tough to go without car insurance. 

i'm finding it's much easier than I thought to go without cuban cigars. 

[NSXCIGAR]

6 hours ago, havanaclub said:

At the Varadero airport, the main shop was very thin and they didn’t want to sell a few boxes

The airports and some hotels have been playing games since June. I've caught them pretty much making up their own prices going back to a day or two before the price hikes. All the prices in your humi photo are consistent with the official list but if you want a box unmarked from the WIH they may ring it up however they want. 

7 hours ago, ATGroom said:

has there ever been a general price decrease of Habanos ever? Was there one in the late 90s when they were rolling tonnes and tonnes of dubious quality stock?

There's never been a price cut to my knowledge. They increased production in the 90s but could still barely satisfy demand. But doubling prices of something that was barely moving anyway is new territory. I just don't know how they're going to move small Cohiba at these prices. They've got to roll it.

3 hours ago, ha_banos said:

So wonder why they are sitting on the shelves in Cuba?

Siglo I-III etc. have always sat around. Even CCE is almost always there. No surprise. People want IV+. I-III is pretty easily found in home markets right now at comparable prices. No need to go to Cuba. And Chinese travel has been down the last 6 weeks so the few that would be purchasing small Cohibas in Cuba aren't going. 

10 hours ago, RDB said:

If I was HSA, I’d start by reducing the supply.

Not that simple. Leaf just doesn't get repurposed for other cigars easily. You can't make a Siglo IV out of leaf for a Siglo I or II. The leaf isn't large enough. If you have small/short leaf you roll small cigars. There's nothing else you can do. Not to mention the blends are actually different for several of these. Siglo I's blend is different than II and III which are pretty similar but IV, V and VI are all different. 

[Hoepssa]

This price only makes Fohiba grow.