I'm a bit of a contrarian here. I have smoked too many lightly aged Cubans (10 years or less) that were not worth anything over the msrp, if even that. Aging is so much of a crap shoot, I fail to see how one could give a blanket answer to this. I also disagree with the 65% RH belief, and yes, I submit that it is a belief, an opinion, with no real scientific backing. For instance, it is well known that cigars start losing oleo-resins once humidity drops below 69%. In addition, I remember reading about a blind study of Aged versus Fresh Cuban cigars. The fresh won handily. I myself prefer the fresh flavor of a cigar, and know that at least, for a while, the cigar will resemble a given Marca flavor profile. I have also experimented aging CCs at 65 and 69, and the 69 had much better flavor after 5 years. I.e., they retained their character. Granted, this is based on about 6 or 7 yrs somewhat heavy exposure and experimentation to CCs, versus over 30 yrs with NCs. I think the magical aged cuban cigar is very rare, in absolute terms. I suspect a person with a load of experience will better be able to make educated guesses as to whether or not an aged box if cigars is worth a premium. I may change my opinion as time goes on, but suspect it will be more in the realm of cigars that were great before aging, and cigars that were aged over 10 years.
