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gibbleguts was kind enough to send me the two Montecristo GRs that he received at a recent cigar festival Gala dinner.  I then decided to take some pictures of two of the known-good Monte GRs side by side with two of the TL Monte GRs.  The two cigars on the left are the known good Montecristo GRs.  The two cigars on the right are the suspect TL cigars.

TL was charging $70 per cigar for these... so one would expect that they would be flawless examples of the best Habanos has to offer.

First the cigars:

[img]http://people.ambrosiasw.com/~andrew/cigARS/tl_monte_grs1.jpg[/img]

A few points to notice here:

1) The wrappers on the two left-most cigars are consistent with each other, and are fairly light.  The wrapper on TL's cigars on the right, on the other hand, are several shades darker, and are mottled with even some blistering on one cigar

2) The height of the cigar on the right does not match the height of the rest of the cigars, showing an inconsistency that would not make it past QC on a cigar like this

3) The bulbous head of the rightmost cigar makes it clear that this cigar is not rolled as it should be

Now, let's superimpose one of the TL cigars on the known-good cigars.  Note that the image is only shifted left, not scaled or shifted up or down, as can be seen by the ruler on the right.


[img]http://people.ambrosiasw.com/~andrew/cigARS/tl_monte_grs2.jpg[/img]

This makes it pretty clear that the TL cigar was not rolled as it should be for this vitola, with a much more bulbous tip.

Finally, a close-up comparison of the wrapper on these cigars:

[img]http://people.ambrosiasw.com/~andrew/cigARS/tl_monte_grs3.jpg[/img]

I think this makes it fairly clear that this isn't just a matter of color variance or sorting.  The two cigars on the left use beautiful colorado wrapper, the cigars on the right have much darker wrappers, and wrappers that are not as well de-veined, and have a mottled appearance.  There's even some blistering on one of them.

I think these inconsistencies/differences make it clear that these cigars are not of the same pedigree.

You'll notice I didn't comment on the bands; they appear to be right-on.  In fact, I believe them to be real bands, taken from the factory or print shop, and put on fake cigars.

Permanent home on vitolas.net:

[url=http://www.vitolas.net/displayimage.php?pos=-1269]http://www.vitolas.net/displayimage.php?pos=-1269[/url]

Andrew do you have kids? I cant believe the time you put into this thanks again.

[quote author=TNT Cigarguy link=topic=9459.msg52381#msg52381 date=1305602084]
Andrew do you have kids? I cant believe the time you put into this thanks again.
[/quote]

Two kids.  I did the pictures and writeup after they went to bed. :)

Anyway, thoughts about the cigars?

Moki...you work is flawless... :bigup:

I did not expect the pictures to be so obvious.  I am a firm believer that almost any thing can happen in Cuba.  That said I was still surprised that some one had them before I did being at the festival.  Things were much different at the Gala this year and it was way more difficult to to buy the left over boxes then the previous year.  Maybe they were being saved for someone.  I did look at a lot of these cigars that night as there were trays of them being handed out by the servers.  None that I saw looked really dark like the ones pictured by Moki.  I do have the picture of the cigar I smoked that night and it was pretty close to flawless as well.  I think Moki's pictures speak for themselves but here are a couple more just because

[IMG]http://i704.photobucket.com/albums/ww50/gibbleguts_photos/IMG_1294.jpg[/img]

[IMG]http://i704.photobucket.com/albums/ww50/gibbleguts_photos/IMG_1256.jpg[/img]

[IMG]http://i704.photobucket.com/albums/ww50/gibbleguts_photos/IMG_1244.jpg[/img]

Excellent work as always Andrew, very good presentation

Thank you for this fascinating and important information.


And what does having kids have to do with this? I have two and let them get their own cigars.

CB

I haven't ever seen the toothiness that there is on that cigar on the far right on a Cuban cigar...

[quote author=DBall link=topic=9459.msg52399#msg52399 date=1305634334]
I haven't ever seen the toothiness that there is on that cigar on the far right on a Cuban cigar...
[/quote]

Yah, it wouldn't surprise me if the tobacco is from somewhere else.

Most of the other cigars, I don't have a known-good control cigar to photograph it with, so it'll just be smoking them to see what they taste like.

Though I'm also not sure if anyone cares if more cigars are examined or not?

Maybe someone else can do some...