1. Cigar History
Cigar History
Cigar History
A ceramic pot discovered in
Guatemala that dates at least as far
back as the 10th century depicts a
Mayan puffing on tobacco leaves
bound up with string. (The Mayans may
also have handed down the object's name:
their term for smoking, sikar, likely led to
the Spanish cigarro. Webster’s has the
word cigar all the way back to 1730.
October 28, 1492 Columbus witnessed
Cuba’s indigenous
population
twisting up
tobacco
leaves and enjoying a
smoke. The explorer
brought the raw material
back to Europe.
1817, the Seville, Spain
monopolized stranglehold on Cuban Cigars is
broken up.
By the mid-19th century U.S. consumes roughly
300 million cigars. Many Cuban cigar-makers
migrate to Tampa "Cigar City", Florida.
King Edward VII, assuming the
British throne in 1901, famously
announced a break with the
smoke-free policies of his
mother Queen Victoria by
uttering the words:
"Gentlemen, you may smoke."
Sigmaund Freud’s patients had to
endure the acrid stench from his
20-a-day cigar habit.
The introduction of machine-made cigars in 1920
caused a precipitous fall in handmade production,
which by 1950 had declined from 90 percent to 2
percent.
Cigar smoking in the U.S. saw another
major change in early 1962 when
President John F. Kennedy imposed
the embargo on Cuba.
Before Kennedy signed the order on
February 7, however, he ordered his
press secretary, Pierre Salinger,
on a treasure hunt around
Washington D.C. for every
H. Upmann petit corona he
could find. After
Salinger rounded up
1,200 of them
Kennedy put the
embargo into effect.
The average price for a box of pre-embargo
Cuban cigars sold at Christie’s soared from less
than $500 in 1992 to nearly $2,500 in mid-1996
The mid-1990s saw a resurgence in cigars, which
in turn led to a collection of high- end cigar
magazines hitting newsstands.
Wall Street took an interest in cigars, and six cigar
companies went public in 1996.
By 1997, over 400 million premium cigars were
being imported into the United States.
Imports dipped as the market struggled to absorb
all the cigars that had been made in the dizzying,
final days of the cigar boom, falling to 248.3
million cigars in 1999.
As the market flooded with inferior product, sales
figures for premium cigars went flat after 1998.
2007 imports had climbed again to nearly 300
million premium cigars.
Avg price for a premium cigar in 1990 was $1.75.
Avg price for a premium cigar in 1996 was $3.23.
Today, cigar prices are in the $5 to $7 range.
endure the acrid stench from his
Sources:
www.altadisusa.com
www..time.com
The Flexible Packaging Experts
1990 1996 Today
$1.75
$3.23
$5-$7