Another fake 1966?

[sjmistry]

Hello all;

Need some help with trying to find out authenticity of these. I am in a hard place right now: no outer box, no seal or barcode. Below is all that I have available to me. Available through secondary market, although said to have been sourced through a vendor many have used in the past.

I have another box that looks great, but I do not know if comparing would be the right thing since quality can be all over the place. I can also provide more photos. Thoughts?

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

-Shake

[Lotusguy]

My thought? Don't buy when you're not 100% sure of originality. No seal and barcode and outer box = no way to prove they are real so you have to trust the seller. Do you?

[JohnS]

Overall, I do agree with @Lotusguy, but now that you've got the box, I would smoke one because the images you've uploaded are petty impressive, if fake (they look like the real thing for sure!).

[shamz84]

Agree they look pretty dam good if they are fake.. what made you question them in the first place if you've bought of them before?

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[sjmistry]

Thanks fellas, the things that are throwing me off are the following:

1) Caps and pig tails are somewhat rough compared to my other box. I have a feeling this is one of those quality control issues.

2) This box has a stamp on it. My other box has the stamp on the cardboard. Not sure if they decided to change things when producing.

I thought I saw a post that listed factories/months where these were produced but I cannot find it at the moment so that is also a question that I have.

 

-Shake

[Fugu]

2 hours ago, sjmistry said:

2) This box has a stamp on it. My other box has the stamp on the cardboard. Not sure if they decided to change things when producing.

Nothing to worry about the stamping. There were some codes where cardboard and boxes had been stamped.

[TheMonk]

If it's a fake, it's not a bad one. Are the cigars triple capped? Can't really see from the photos. And it didn't come with the cedar sheet on top?

Also, run your fingers both through all the lettering in the back of the box (except boxcode) and also the cigar label, and feel for depth - the lettering in the back are not ink stamps, but actual burned-in marks by the branding of the bottom of the boxes. That's always a good indicator for me.

[Fugu]

1 hour ago, TheMonk said:

If it's a fake, it's not a bad one. Are the cigars triple capped?

Yea, but in a pigtail, they don't usually come with what can be called a clear 'triple cap'. Usually it's just one and a half to two turns, then quickly running out into the tail. From the above pics there is nothing that would scream fake to me. And from the OP's mentioned two points, they are not really constituting any reasonable ground for suspecting if you ask me. Not possible to evaluate from remote.

Smoke away happily - looking at the pics alone makes my mouth water.....

[TheMonk]

16 minutes ago, Fugu said:

Yea, but in a pigtail, they don't usually come with what can be called a clear 'triple cap'. Usually it's just one and a half to two turns, then quickly running out into the tail. From the above pics there is nothing that would scream fake to me. And from the OP's mentioned two points, they are not really constituting any reasonable ground for suspecting if you ask me. Not possible to evaluate from remote.

Smoke away happily - looking at the pics alone makes my mouth water.....

True, I forgot these are pitgail. And you're right, they do look pretty good to me as well.

[sjmistry]

6 hours ago, TheMonk said:

If it's a fake, it's not a bad one. Are the cigars triple capped? Can't really see from the photos. And it didn't come with the cedar sheet on top?

Also, run your fingers both through all the lettering in the back of the box (except boxcode) and also the cigar label, and feel for depth - the lettering in the back are not ink stamps, but actual burned-in marks by the branding of the bottom of the boxes. That's always a good indicator for me.

Cedar sheet was included just not in pics. Not fully triple capped as Fugu mentioned. Habanos actually burned in on the back as you said.

Can anyone confirm that quality can vary this much from box to box like this? Also does anyone out there have a similar box?

Thanks for all of your inputs. I guess paranoia has gotten the best of me.

-Shake

[Fugu]

1 hour ago, sjmistry said:

Can anyone confirm that quality can vary this much from box to box like this? Also does anyone out there have a similar box?

Difficult to spot from the pics sjmistry. But there has indeed been the occasional fairly rough wrapper with the 1966. At last, it still is an EL...

But if you'd post a sharp closeup of just the heads down to the bands we could at least throw another glance at them. But even then.... the proof is in the pudding....

[clutch5150]

Gosh, if fake they are the best I've seen!