Curious about the past...

[tuneman07]

Maybe some of the older BOTL here can help me out with this- I was just curious about cigars of the past. Right now the popular cigars are the Padrons, Gurkha's, Ashtons, Rocky Patel, 5 Vegas, there are a ton more but you know what I mean. What was it like 15 or 20 years ago? Were these brands still around/popular? Were they better? Worse? Any brands that just disappeared? What about cigars in general are they on the way up or the way down quality wise? I am only 22 so my cigar experience goes back maybe 2 or 3 years but I just am curious about what things were like in the past as far as cigars go.

[WyoBob]

I started smoking cigars around 1990. My first cigars were Ashton Aged maduro #30s. I smoked a lot of Thompson house brands called "Wellington" for a couple of years. Believe it or not, a very good cigar. When the boom hit, the quality of the Wellingtons went down the tube and I started on the hunt for a replacement.

The hunt for a dependable replacement for the Ashtons which were getting expensive and the Wellington's whose quality declined was a real pain. Brands came and went and quality darned sure came and went. Many boom cigars, besides being made with cruddy tobacco, had big time construction problems.

Prices for sub-standard cigars went up along with the good ones. It seemed to me that blends from one year to the next changed quite a bit with some brands. About the time you settled on a new "favorite", the price jumped or you just couldn't find them. La Gloria Cubana and A.F. 858s come to mind.

I finally settled on A.F. Chateau Fuente, LGC Gloria Extra or Medaille d'Oro #1 (all maduros). I also smoked a few boxes of Padron Churchill maduros, HDM Excaliber #3 and JR 5 Star.

I've got an old spreadsheet with cigar names and prices and my "rankings" from the mid 90's. Some other names on that sheet: Holt's Special maduro, Rico Havana Blend Plaza, La Plata mad Magnificos, Partagas maduro, Royal Jamaica Mad. corona, Joya, de Nicaraguq toro & Presidente, Sosa governor, Royal Jamaca Mad. corona, Bauza Jaguar, Montesino Fumas, Cuesta Rey Mad., Lempira Lancero, Licenciados

Real "Dog Rockets": Maya Corona, Don Jose, MiCubano, Maya Robusto, La Tradicion, Madrigal petit corona, Flor de Florez, Bering plaza, Las Cabrillas Desoto mad, A.F. Privada #1, Hojo de Nicaragua

Prices on a few of my favorites back then" Aston Aged maduro #30- $5.75, Padron Churchill mad- $2.95, A.F. 858- $2.55, A.F. Chat Fuente-$2.55, LGC Medaille d'Oro #1- $3.75, HDM Excaliber #3- $3.75, A.F. Hemingway sig- $4.50.

WyoBob

[jmcrawf1]

Originally Posted by WyoBob

Prices on a few of my favorites back then" Aston Aged maduro #30- $5.75, Padron Churchill mad- $2.95, A.F. 858- $2.55, A.F. Chat Fuente-$2.55, LGC Medaille d'Oro #1- $3.75, HDM Excaliber #3- $3.75, A.F. Hemingway sig- $4.50.

WyoBob

WOW!

[zipper]

There was a post about how Rocky Patel got started HERE not too long ago. I'm pretty young too so it is nice to hear about the history of the industry and some of the people in it. It's on my list of things to do more research on

[The Saint]

Originally Posted by WyoBob

I started smoking cigars around 1990. My first cigars were Ashton Aged maduro #30s. I smoked a lot of Thompson house brands called "Wellington" for a couple of years. Believe it or not, a very good cigar. When the boom hit, the quality of the Wellingtons went down the tube and I started on the hunt for a replacement.

The hunt for a dependable replacement for the Ashtons which were getting expensive and the Wellington's whose quality declined was a real pain. Brands came and went and quality darned sure came and went. Many boom cigars, besides being made with cruddy tobacco, had big time construction problems.

Prices for sub-standard cigars went up along with the good ones. It seemed to me that blends from one year to the next changed quite a bit with some brands. About the time you settled on a new "favorite", the price jumped or you just couldn't find them. La Gloria Cubana and A.F. 858s come to mind.

I finally settled on A.F. Chateau Fuente, LGC Gloria Extra or Medaille d'Oro #1 (all maduros). I also smoked a few boxes of Padron Churchill maduros, HDM Excaliber #3 and JR 5 Star.

I've got an old spreadsheet with cigar names and prices and my "rankings" from the mid 90's. Some other names on that sheet: Holt's Special maduro, Rico Havana Blend Plaza, La Plata mad Magnificos, Partagas maduro, Royal Jamaica Mad. corona, Joya, de Nicaraguq toro & Presidente, Sosa governor, Royal Jamaca Mad. corona, Bauza Jaguar, Montesino Fumas, Cuesta Rey Mad., Lempira Lancero, Licenciados

Real "Dog Rockets": Maya Corona, Don Jose, MiCubano, Maya Robusto, La Tradicion, Madrigal petit corona, Flor de Florez, Bering plaza, Las Cabrillas Desoto mad, A.F. Privada #1, Hojo de Nicaragua

Prices on a few of my favorites back then" Aston Aged maduro #30- $5.75, Padron Churchill mad- $2.95, A.F. 858- $2.55, A.F. Chat Fuente-$2.55, LGC Medaille d'Oro #1- $3.75, HDM Excaliber #3- $3.75, A.F. Hemingway sig- $4.50.

WyoBob

Boy some of those names bring back memories...MiCubano.
We used to road trip to Eastwold smokeshop in Sioux Falls SD and pick up A.F. Hemmy Shorts for...hand to God....$2.50ea(then again SD tax is only 10% of wholesale.). Then about the middle of 97 or so.....yeah, they weren't $2.50 anymore

[mels95yj]

Well, I haven't smoked that long, but when I started in '96 I loved the Al Capone Rothchild cigars. Not the flavored cigarillos you can buy now. They were about the same price as the Punch Rothchilds at about $2.25 at the B&M. I never had one that didn't provide tons of smoke and burn true. I guess I was the only person that liked them since they're no longer around. I'd be curious to see if I still would like them today.

Mel

[txmatt]

Digging up memories of cigars gone by... Going back 10 - 15 years.. I have been smoking cigars for 16 years so this is back when I just started. I can say the cigar market is currently the best it has ever been in my years of smoking.

Brands/Cigars I miss from 10 or so years ago: Cupido, Esteven Cruz (Costa Rica), Miyares, Carlos III, CAO L' Anniversaire (Costa Rica), Hugo Cassar, Penguin, Public Enemy (by Frank Vincent), Royal Jamaica (Jamaica), Calixto Lopez (Philippines).

Countries no longer sending cigars to our market that were back then: Philippines, Canary Islands, Jamaica, Venezuela..

It was much harder to know or guess good cigars from bad ones back then. There were significantly more brands on the market at the peak of the boom in 1999 than are today; probably several hundred more brands.

Most of us didn't know about internet cigar boards back then, so we didn't have a place to discuss good cigars. All too often you would pick up a $10 cigar and discover it was horrible. I resorted to smoking mostly La Fincas for several years after trying one too many pricey dog rockets.

[The Saint]

Originally Posted by txmatt

Hugo Cassar.

Matt, I think that Philip and King the wholesale company still has Hugo....But , I don't think they are the same as the ones from the days of old.

Its possible that some B&M's may buy cigars from P&K and could get them...but, who knows?

[taltos]

Early seventies I remember smoking Punch, a Wally Frank house brand, and I think Petersons.

[Glacierman]

Weeeell now, sonny, pull up a chair and lemme tell ya how it was back then. Y'see, I had to walk 20 miles barefoot in the snow to get to a B&M, and... no, wait, wrong story.

Some things I smoked back in late 1980s to ca. 2000 with great regularity? Here we go (all NCs, of course):

Partagas 8-9-8 (ahh, sweet mystery of life!)

Hoyo de Monterrey Excalibur - not as good today as they were then, but still OK.

Santa Clara 1830 - Mexican, and a pretty good cheap stick that was readily available then. Now, you can smoke the Santa Clara Havana Reserve (JR) for a decent and inexpensive Mexican.

Joya de Nicaragua before the Sandinistas trashed it - excellent.

La Plata Anniversary - oh, joy!

Fuente anything. Got into the Hemis by 2000 and was a total lunatic for the Short Story. Too bad it's gone downhill since then.

Punch Pita, double maduro - still a bloody good cigar!

CAO L'Anniversaire Cameroon when they first came out. The current incarnation, now just called CAO Cameroon, is OK, but nowhere near what it used to be. And that is not just "the good old days" syndrome, it is Truth.

That's the short list.

Cheers!

[tuneman07]

Some interesting material there Its cool to read about these things

[Dgar]

2 for 15 cents, King Edwards.... I'm just a youngin!