From initial glance, the lanceros bands do look suspect, with the cutoff of the extra row of squares at the top... Fakes are a multi million dollar business, and real bands are prevalent... So... this is strange... If you smoke a lot of cuban cigars, you can smell, feel and smoke them and have no doubt whether they are real or not. Can this person tell you where he bought them? Picture of the box? etc... If it were me, and it was just a few samples, I would smoke them and if they were amazing (as any 04 Cohiba should be) great! if they suck, don't deal with this guy again....