A History of America in Cigar Consumption

[JE3146]

The figures prior to 1920 are the most astonishing. Average per adult male.. over 250 a year!?

[DrDubzz]

Originally Posted by JE3146

The figures prior to 1920 are the most astonishing. Average per adult male.. over 250 a year!?

That's why everything came in 50 and 100 cabs, it had to!

[Neuromancer]

Hmmm...when Kennedy put the embargo in effect, he'd just picked up about 50 boxes of the CC's he liked...no way he had time to smoke them all...wonder what happened to them...just think of it...somewhere out there today there may be a hugh stash of pre-embargo CC's that are almost 50 years old...nah, Sargent Shriver probably smoked 'em...

[SmokeyJoe]

Originally Posted by Neuromancer

Hmmm...when Kennedy put the embargo in effect, he'd just picked up about 50 boxes of the CC's he liked...no way he had time to smoke them all...wonder what happened to them...just think of it...somewhere out there today there may be a hugh stash of pre-embargo CC's that are almost 50 years old...nah, Sargent Shriver probably smoked 'em...

Marvin Shanken bought them at Auction, April 23, 1996

http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar...22,131,00.html

Google is your friend!

[qwerty1500]

Originally Posted by SmokeyJoe

Marvin Shanken bought them at Auction, April 23, 1996

http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar...22,131,00.html

Google is your friend!

Thanks. It solves the mystery about what happened to JFK's humidor. Unless I missed it, the article didn't say anything about the cigars. I have often wondered what became of them.

Amazing, 250 a year plus on average...

[M1903A1]

Originally Posted by qwerty1500

Thanks. It solves the mystery about what happened to JFK's humidor. Unless I missed it, the article didn't say anything about the cigars. I have often wondered what became of them.

I remember seeing a humidor (think there were two?) in the auction catalog. If this is the same as the one I remember, it was a glass-top desktop stocked with a handful of Perfecto Garcia "Ensign" cigars (not exactly pre-embargo H. Upmanns) and a book of paper matches.

And what's so odd about 250 cigars in a year? That's not even one a day, on average.

[M1903A1]

An additional thought about the 250+ cigars a year figure...they speak of "large cigars" in reference to the graph. But, I think they're applying modern standards/prejudices to period data.

From what I've seen (both in period photos and surviving examples), your average-market cigar back around 1915-20 wasn't big by anyone's standards...it wasn't a robusto, let alone a Churchill or DC. It was something more like a petit corona or minutos size...think Parti Shorts or Sig IIs. Average people back then didn't smoke cigars as a hobby, it was just something you did...and Joe Average on the farm or the production line at Ford wasn't gonna drop twenty-five or fifty cents every day for a big perfecto or double corona to smoke after dinner. (By modern standards, that would be like smoking a big Opus X every night!) He'd have bought a box or two of Harvesters, El Productos or some regional brand in a corona, PC or smaller size. And as many of us know, even at a rate of only one a day it's not hard to burn through a lot of those in a year.

[SmokeyJoe]

Originally Posted by SmokeyJoe

Marvin Shanken bought them at Auction, April 23, 1996

http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar...22,131,00.html

Google is your friend!

Another auction in 2005 for some of his cigars...

http://www.cigarenvy.com/2005/12/13/...ia-on-auction/

[The Poet]

Originally Posted by JE3146

The figures prior to 1920 are the most astonishing. Average per adult male.. over 250 a year!?

That's why they didn't sell them by the box, but rather by the barrel.

It was NOT the Anti-Smoking Lobby that killed the dominance of cigars in this country, it was the development and marketing of the cigarette.