Just bought a box of Cohiba Esplendidos. I was checking everything on havanajournal. It came in the wax paper stuff too, folded very neatly. The bands, hinge, directions inside, the green and white cuba label, are all legit acording to the site. But, the stick on the inside is the fake one with the big head, and the the sticker on the bottom left hand corner has a hologram, but doesnt look like the one on the site, it is a little different. So i presume these are fakes?

Please help, im not too happy when i found this out. I also have 2 Cohiba EL 2003’s that have legit bands too when i checked them out. Any tricks on them are welcome too.

Thankyou.

If you can send a couple pictures to me at rob at havanajournal.com I’ll have a look and post here.

Where did you buy them?

ok give me a few min.

Ok sent.

I hate to be a PITA but I have a similar problem. According to your spot the fake guide mine are very close. The gold lettering is gold foil and is raised as in your example. However the Habana cuba script is closer to the gold frame around COHIBA, also there are only 2 rows of white squares above the COHIBA gold frame.
The cigar feels very good, even with no hard/soft spots and the cap looks very neat.
I have attached a couple of photos to illustrate what I mean.
Any thoughts?

Colin

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aero-savant/?saved=1

I think they need three, and the yellow extends too far down from what i have seen.

pedros, Hard to tell but doesn’t look to be high quality. The labels and boxes are FLAWLESS. If you see any printing flaws or manufacturing flaws they are fake.

srt8mag, Thanks for the photos. Hard to tell from just looking at the box.

To both of you, cut a cigar open or unroll it. If the guts are filled with shredded, cigarette type tobacco, you have fakes. ALL Cohibas have whole, de-veined leave filler, NEVER shredded scraps.

Let me know how it goes.

Where did you buy them? From someone who has a friend who works in the factory?

If they are fakes, you should think twice about smoking them. If you have been ripped off by a criminal, I certainly would not trust their “quality control” meaning they could use anything including non-tobacco leaves in the cigars so they may not only taste bad but may have molds, animal droppings or urine, pesticides and who knows what else.

Keep me posted.

That’s what I thought!

I’ve just taken the cigar apart nd I’m still none the wiser!
Unlike the pictures I’ve seen on similar adjacent threads this filling looks quite close to what you showed as the ideal V cut leaves. Some are and some aren’t. There are a couple with some veins still in but there are no thick veins at all.
Again see the Flickr pics to give an opinion, please.

Colin

http://www.flickr.com/photos/organize/?start_tab=sets

I need a different flickr link, this one is asking me to log in.

Where did you buy the cigars. Sounds like they might be really good fakes.

Try this link:-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aero-savant/?saved=1

I cut mine open, and it is all long filler. There are no little scraps any where to be found. But is is possible that these cigars could be made with non cuban filler?? Or is it already a production cigar availible in the states? I kind of dout that one because they are very well made, and have a flawless wrapper, so they may be kind of expensive and would not make any money. I paid 250 for the box.

Okay, the contents sound good so that’s a step in the right direction so sounds like worst case scenario that you have very good fakes.

Why do you doubt your cigars? Did you buy them from a less than reputable source?

You may want to ask the folks over at http://FriendsOfHabanos.com and see what they say.