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Fakes in DR

Bxcigrfan

Bxcigrfan

There Once was a Man from Nantucket...
Joined
Dec 1, 2007
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Bronx, Rochester, Morningside Heights, NY
So i went to DR for a lil Vacation with some family friends and both me and my "uncle"(known him since i was 5) are smokers but i knew that DR would be plagued with fakes, so i brought along a bunch of smokes for us to have.

Well on our first day their we decide to take a walk around while we wait for check in time. i get closer to the beach and start to pass a cigar stand and i think cool, lets see what they have.
well they had the infamous Cohibah and Arty Fuentek and i laughed them off and keep on walking.

two days later there is a small street sale going on around the dinner area and i go to see what is being sold.
again they hae a guy with a cigar stand selling his "premium stuff". so i admire what he has and hold in my laughs when the seller comes to me and is like "do you want? i have good stuff. Cuban Cohiba." So i tell the guy "come on they are fake" and he goes on to insist " no they are original Cuban."

well i couldnt hold the laughter so i point out to him how i know they are not Cuban and here is the kicker
this was his response

" ok ok they are not Original Original but they are good, buy you will like"

so as i rolled around the floor laughing my uncle picks me up to go eat dinner. here are the product he tried to sell me
fakes.jpg
 
I'm glad you had a camera handy. That is freakin hilarious. Thanks.
 
But they didn't have the rarest of Cohibas in that picture. The elusive Nilla Hiba, if you find those you must buy as they are rare and highly coveted.

What a shame they look so good :D
 
How can you tell they are fake just from a picture!

???
 
Maybe they should have turned the negative over when they were deciding where to put the stamps and chevrons.


Oh yeah, no discussing sources Pete :laugh:
 
Matt if you want i know a guy that knows a guy that has a friend in miami that knows a guy who can get you like 4 boxes for only 100 bucks thats like 25 a box. im just putting it out there
offer open to any of the BOTL's out here
 
Those aren't even real fakes, looks like cellophane not glass. :laugh:
 
I was in DR last year and went through the same thing. They swore that the sticks were real. Looked just like the pictures.
 
I was in the DR two or three times last year and had similar experiences. I even went into B&M places that had boxes of fakes for sale. I mean they were OBVIOUSLY fake. I mean the bands looks like they were run off a color copier at Kinko's. It was rediculous. Of course an associate of mine was seconds from buying a box. I saved him and made him by the group dinner instead. :whistling:
 
Beside the glass top what also can help
to conclude that they are fake?
The Cuban seal is in weird color ,right?

I guess if I weren't reading hear I could be fooled too.
They do look beautiful.
 
jepe said:
Beside the glass top what also can help
to conclude that they are fake?
The Cuban seal is in weird color ,right?

I guess if I weren't reading hear I could be fooled too.
They do look beautiful.
Click to expand...

A few things can be easily spotted at a distance...that would be indicators to me (aside from the box...which is obvious)

1) The seal on the front box is a lime green ink, representative of the old style seals that would have been in the pre-2003 era, the seal is dark. However it seems to be more of a lime green than dark color, as if off a computer.

2) Unless the cigars were "real" and from pre-2003 (almost 6 years older or more) then the band is convincing at a distance. Post 2003 Cohibas won't have the black ink for the COHIBA on the band, they'd have Gold embossing with a solid gold line around COHIBA, not to mention they'd have 3 lines of white dots instead of two. I highly doubt a street vendor would have such aged cigars in such a large and continuous quantity.

3) The habanos stickers in the upper left of the boxes are a dead give away. Not only are they different sizes, one is particularly printed lopsided on the sticky. Furthermore, legitimate Habanos stickers don't have anything surrounded with a large white border. the lines above and below habanos should be flush with the edge of the band. It should be 13/16" of an inch wide, and that is obviously much larger, even to the naked eye. The bold lines should be Black, not a faded maroonish brown color. Also I believe the tobacco leaf silhouette is supposed to be relatively small on all boxes (unless they were changed over the years), like in the 2nd and 4th box. I'm pretty sure it's a standard for all boxes, and if it is, or even if it changed across dates the variety in sizes in and of itself is a dead giveaway with the inconsistencies between the boxes. Also, some of the letters of "Habanos" are darker and lighter, more blurry and more clear across the different boxes.

4) A quick examination of the cigars in the front box show different ring gauges, if even slight, across the whole box.

5) The boxes to the right of the "cellophane topped" cohibas have a large inconsistency and variety in the placement of the habanos band. Not to mention the Lines above and below "Habanos" are of a large size and shading variety. Some the lines are really close to the letters, some they are far, some of the lines are thicker, some are thin. There should be uniformity across them.

6) The gold filling on the womans head on the large Cohiba sticker does not fully fill the area of the face. Not to mention the font is wrong, and too condensed as opposed to the large letters on an authentic sticker.

Photo comparisons representing a little of what I pointed out:

​

Legitimate photos used from:
cigarnexus.com
Vitolas.net
 
WOW!!
Very informative,
thanks a lot for all the info BigJake6904 :thumbs:

After reading your post I hope it will be easier for me
to spot fakes when I see one.
 
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