2017 Deletions.

[ErikB]

Supply and demand...


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[soutso]

Sad news. The H Upmann and Rafael Gonzalez PCs are the best PCs available IMO. 

The Du Prince although not quite a PC (or is it?) is up there with the Upmann PC. Terrible losses.

Its obvious that they want to pull their resources into the fatter cigars that fetch a premium price. This is with no consideration for quality and choice.

[Duxnutz]

Might be eating ramen next week, just loaded up a couple 50 cab'o'Punch.

#LockDownYour50cabs

[bman75]

4 hours ago, ErikB said:

Supply and demand...

While I can appreciate that the popular vitolas among enthusiasts aren't necessarily big sellers worldwide, I find it hard to fathom that HUPC didn't outsell JLPC and SP Non Plus combined.  Why not knock out one of those?

With the HDM DD being absent so long, I have to think that a lot of that demand shifted to Du Prince over the past two years.  Even if Du Prince sales were relatively low compared to other small vitolas, the sales volume certainly must have been higher the past two years.

Given the recent leaf shortage, It feels like there was a short-sighted decision to sacrifice these two to make more leaf available for larger, higher-margin cigars in those marcas.  If that was their thinking, why not just have HUPC and HDM Du Prince go on a disappearing act for 2-3 years until the leaf situation improves?  

[Philc2001]

This is one of the chief reasons I went into a decade-long buying hiatus. In late nineties I started developing a taste for CCs, and started to accumulate. A few years later my tastes were very biased toward Punch. And then the cuts started to wipe the brand out. I stocked up, cabs and cans. Then I shut down. I smoked through a lot of my stock, and then started to delve back in about a year ago. And here we are again. Same story line, 12 or so years later. Love/hate relationship.


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[Philc2001]

This is one of the chief reasons I went into a decade-long buying hiatus. In late nineties I started developing a taste for CCs, and started to accumulate. A few years later my tastes were very biased toward Punch. And then the cuts started to wipe the brand out. I stocked up, cabs and cabs. Then I shut down. After smoking through most of my stock, I started to delve back in about a year ago. And here we are again. Same story line, 12 or so years later. Love/hate relationship.


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[shlomo]

Not surprised by anything except the discontinuation of the two Jose Piedra cigars. Those are head scratchers.

[CaptainQuintero]

50 minutes ago, shlomo said:

Not surprised by anything except the discontinuation of the two Jose Piedra cigars. Those are head scratchers.

I can only think they've cut the least productive of the line to make up the new vegeros and Quintero

[Smallclub]

1 hour ago, shlomo said:

 except the discontinuation of the two Jose Piedra cigars. Those are head scratchers.

Yeah, I'm surprised too. The Cremas and the Petit Cetros are the ones that you can find everywhere in western Europe, even in french Bureaux de Tabac that don't sell premium cigars.

[Fugu]

1 hour ago, shlomo said:

Not surprised by anything except the discontinuation of the two Jose Piedra cigars. Those are head scratchers.

Well, there was for sure a certain redundancy in JLP line, with its 7 very similar-sized vitolas. But right, in kicking out the only two sub-42-ring gauge vitolas, they constrict the remaining five even more to a 42-44 rg range. Why not first of all cutting one of the almost identical Brevas (42x133) and Nacionales (42x134) ???

[garbandz]

I was sorry to see the Churchill sizes go a few years back,and the double coronas as the only large format left.

I still enjoy the RyJ Churchill and would buy this size in other marcas.

another downsizing that makes no sense to me.

deleting the HUPC   is shocking............. 

[Mycroft]

The Bolivar CG and HDM Prince were both on El Pres's list of 13 best cigars of 2016. I haven't tried recent BCGs, but the few I've had in the past were pretty ho-hum. The one ROTT I tried from a (resting) box of HDM Prince I bought recently was great, but previous experience is mixed - excellent to unsmokeably tight (same box) to bland. Cuban cigars go on and off from year to year it seems to me. No reason to think those two would have been on the Best List next year. I just need Rob to tell us where that good Bolivar and HDM leaf has been re-allocated to and proceed from there.

[forgop]

I may be adding 3 more boxes of BCG's and a cab of Punch DC's in the very near future. 

 

[Dave001]

On ‎1‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 1:56 PM, JohnS said:

I'm feeling 'gutted', especially about the H.Upmann Petit Corona and Hoyo de Monterrey Le Hoyo du Prince. I went through a 10 year old box of H.Upmann Petit Coronas last year (which I split with a few other Aussie BOTL's), I promise you, it was one of the best boxes of cigars, for the value, I have ever smoked. What a sad day!

On a positive note, at least those Bolivar Tubo No. 1's will be available in today's 24:24. Grab them while you can! 

same here john im currently smoking an 11 year old box of HUPC's and my goodness its so good, just makes me sad and quite guilty now when  I light one of these up I guess its good I have 2 more boxes left but I really need to stock up on these suckers

[Trevor2118]

To decode the ENVASE (packaging) go to http://www.cubancigarwebsite.com/info-packaging.html#Habanos_Packing_Codes

[s1911]

It's absolutely despicable that BCG and Hoyo du Prince are going to be deleted..more gigantic ring gauge short robusto crap will replace them I'm sure.

[hedgeybaby]

I blame the knobs in Bristol!

From Wikipedia: "In 2000, the Franco-Spanish tobacco giant Altadis ( now owned by Imperial Tobacco Plc,) purchased 50% of Habanos S.A. There has been speculation that their influence has led to Habanos' drastic restructuring of their cigar lines and size offerings, the adoption of marketing practices and production methods more in-line with cigar companies that market in the US, and the increasing number of "special release" and "limited edition" lines of cigars. It has also been suggested that Altadis might be ramping Habanos up ready to trade with the US, anticipating the end of the embargo.

 

This written by El Pres March 2007

"However, if the debt level required for the takeover is too high, then they will want a stronger yield from their Habanos sa involvement. That I would not like as it would put pressure on pricing, new lines etc etc. "

 

 

[Blakes]

It's never pleasant to see the discontinuations list, as like many here they're continuously hitting my preferred sizes, but it's no surprise.

One can only hope with the once scary prospect, for cigar smokers, of the embargo lifting and the opening up of the Cuban economy that this in fact will eventually lead to a deletion we're all eager to see, the deletion of HSA!!!

[earthson]

While these are piss-poor developments wrt my buying habits, there is light at the end of the tunnel. For one, numerous boutique NC brands have gotten off the big RG trend and some smaller cigars are coming out again, some even with a reasonable price point (Illusione Ninfas). Perhaps the NC market is actually years ahead of the CC market and HSA will eventually jump off the jawbreaker train.

For two, not everyone wants to spend $15-30 per cigar regularly. HSA has to keep some small cigars on the shelves at the risk of running off customers who simply find big RG obnoxious, uncomfortable or too time-consuming to smoke.

If faced with only big RG cigars that commanded 2-5 times my "comfort zone price", I would smoke far, far less, or go to some of my old standbys, like the Fuente Don Carlos no 3 (which always amaze me) or some of Illusiones small RG options.

[NSXCIGAR]

3 hours ago, earthson said:

While these are piss-poor developments wrt my buying habits, there is light at the end of the tunnel. For one, numerous boutique NC brands have gotten off the big RG trend and some smaller cigars are coming out again, some even with a reasonable price point (Illusione Ninfas). Perhaps the NC market is actually years ahead of the CC market and HSA will eventually jump off the jawbreaker train.

For two, not everyone wants to spend $15-30 per cigar regularly. HSA has to keep some small cigars on the shelves at the risk of running off customers who simply find big RG obnoxious, uncomfortable or too time-consuming to smoke.

If faced with only big RG cigars that commanded 2-5 times my "comfort zone price", I would smoke far, far less, or go to some of my old standbys, like the Fuente Don Carlos no 3 (which always amaze me) or some of Illusiones small RG options.

The NC market is absolutely years, if not decades ahead of the CC market. And more importantly, NC supply is greater than NC demand. Not so for CCs. Demand completely outstrips supply. HSA sells every bit of tobacco it produces. At current prices, they could probably cut the majority of <42 RG cigars and increase special production large RG and be just fine, if not increase their bottom line. One could argue they're bumping up against the reasonable limits of special production, but they could always increase run limits. The key to special production sales isn't scarcity. It's novelty. And HSA knows it. NC cigar producers have thousands of lines with all sorts of sizes as they need to appeal to every possible taste and segment to sell their tobacco.

And if my theory that Cubatabaco is dealing with a surplus of volado leaf is correct, production is being directed toward large RG for technical reasons. They may not necessarily want to do that, but logistically they may feel they're forced to. Now, I still don't see the reason to necessarily cut models altogether. Limit production or raise prices, to me, is a fairly effective way to keep everyone happy. I cannot think of a business reason that the current approach is the correct one. But I can certainly see how they may be rationalizing it.

 

[earthson]

4 minutes ago, NSXCIGAR said:

The NC market is absolutely years, if not decades ahead of the CC market. And more importantly, NC supply is greater than NC demand. Not so for CCs. Demand completely outstrips supply. HSA sells every bit of tobacco it produces. At current prices, they could probably cut the majority of <42 RG cigars and increase special production large RG and be just fine, if not increase their bottom line. One could argue they're bumping up against the reasonable limits of special production, but they could always increase run limits. The key to special production sales isn't scarcity. It's novelty. And HSA knows it. NC cigar producers have thousands of lines with all sorts of sizes as they need to appeal to every possible taste and segment to sell their tobacco.

And if my theory that Cubatabaco is dealing with a surplus of volado leaf is correct, production is being directed toward large RG for technical reasons. They may not necessarily want to do that, but logistically they may feel they're forced to. Now, I still don't see the reason to necessarily cut models altogether. Limit production or raise prices, to me, is a fairly effective way to keep everyone happy. I cannot think of a business reason that the current approach is the correct one. But I can certainly see how they may be rationalizing it.

 

My assumption is that it's simply a lack of supply of good wrapper. Smaller cigars vs larger cigars is = to more wrapper leaf per volume vs less wrapper leaf per volume. And then, why not wrap a bunch of volado around quality fillers and then charge more because the cigars are, well, bigger!

Let big RG run the roost for 2-3 years and by then, HOPEFULLY, good wrapper is available again and I'll have an easy time procuring my marevas and palmas/panetelas family vitolas again!

[NSXCIGAR]

12 minutes ago, earthson said:

And then, why not wrap a bunch of volado around quality fillers and then charge more because the cigars are, well, bigger!

Volado is used for filler. That's the issue. If they have a bunch of flavorless filler that needs to get used up, larger cigars fit the bill.

And I'm not sure if you have to use choose a small or large cigar to use one wrapper leaf, but it seems to me that if you could use one large leaf for either two small cigars or one large cigar, 2 small cigars would yield more revenue. Not sure how many cigars can be made with one large wrapper leaf but I had thought it was up to two. If you can only wrap one cigar with one leaf, then one large cigar makes more sense. But yes, I am aware of an overall wrapper leaf shortage which could be contributing to the current strategy.

[Fugu]

They usually try to fit the wrapper to the size of the vitola. One cigar - one wrapper (i.e. one half-leaf). Smaller cigar - smaller wrapper leaf.

[SaintMickey®]

On 1/18/2017 at 2:32 AM, El Presidente said:

This list was given to me today (it is official). 

Check the packaging type being deleted. Not all are gone. 

 

As for the rest.....some of my regular rotation favourites. 

Bolivar Tubos No 1 

Bolivar Corona Gigantes

HDM du Prince 

H. Upmann Petit Corona

 

Now don't panic......OK...I put away a dozen boxes of Boli No 1 for myself today just in case.  There should still be stocks around over the coming months in most of those above. I worry about the BCG most as they are thin on the ground (in quantity) now. 

In the past, deletions have been put forward and cigars re-appeared a few years later. I live in hope. 

The Boli 1 I had scheduled to go up on 24:24 tomorrow and will still do so. 

Naturally I have put in orders for as much as I can get of the other 4 as well + the VR Don Alejandro. 

Those are some seriously good cigars that I have enjoyed bringing to you in the past couple of years. Unfortunately, FOH is not a mirror to the rest of the Cuban cigar market. 

I am going off to smoke a Boli 1 

* Surely they aren't going to dump the H. Upmann PC?

 

What if anything is everyone "chasing" on this list before its gone?

[Puros Y Vino]

38 minutes ago, SaintMickey® said:

What if anything is everyone "chasing" on this list before its gone?

The Bolivar Coronas Gigantes, since they're being wiped out completely. Same goes for the VR Don Alejandro.  The VR's didn't do much for me but I do enjoy the BCG's.

Punch 50 cabs too.