Why did you get started rolling your own cigars?

[deluxestogie]

Dating of old cigar boxes is often troublesome. The quoted material below seems comprehensive, but I have no way to judge its validity. Click the link at the bottom of the quote, for more extensive details.

Aluminium tubes first appeared in the mid-1940s and were quite common by the 1950s.

Semi-plain more correctly applies to pre-WW2 boxes, where the dressings did not cover the whole box. Until the mid-1970s, the boxes were constructed from solid cedar, after which time it changed to cedar veneered plywood.

Pre-September 1960

Warranty Seal 1931 to 1961, with perforated margin.

http://www.cubancigarwebsite.com/info-packaging.aspx

These indicators would date the box between the mid-1940s to 1961, although the "Hecho En Cuba" seems to have changed from English (Made in Havana-Cuba) to Spanish only after September 1960.

Bob

EDIT: Another issue that arises is that if the box was purchased in the US, I would expect it to also bear a US tax stamp.

 

[Nic]

Thank you Bob for your answer! The dating of cigars and cigar boxes was a much bigger task than what I had anticipated!

I have tried to do some research myself and found this on http://cigarhistory.info/Dating/Dating_Cuban_Boxes.html

Castro era after 1960
During Castro’s administration the Guarantee stamp underwent some minor revisions, including lighter green ink on inexpensive white imperforate paper. Some minor wording changes were made as well. Some folks make a big deal of Castro’s insistence on “HECHO EN CUBA” replacing “MADE IN CUBA” as the place of origin mark in 1960 but both Spanish and English had been used for decades.

And on http://www.cubancigarwebsite.com/ it is stated that the early production of Singulares the cigar had a push on top, same as in the pictures I posted!
I remember that I read some where a couple of days back that H. Upmann was the first company to introduce cigars packed in aluminium tubes. However, I can't find a reliable source on that info but after some quick googeling there seems to be a consensus that H. Upmann began selling cigars in aluminium tubes sometime in the mid 1930's. I found an ad tho from 1940 where they market the Upmann cigar in an aluminium tube as "modern packing"
https://books.google.fi/books?id=I0...oduced the CEDAR lined aluminium tube&f=false

Due to my country's history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation_War the probability of someone living here in the rural areas, traveling and buying fine cigars in the years between 1939-1945 are very low. Hence, the assumption that the cigars in question are acquired in the early-mid 1930's when the first owner was still young enough to travel and actually visited places where you could buy fine cigars. Unfortunately I don't know where he went and as you stated the absence of a US tax stamp (and the Spanish text on the bottom, if you assume that they were produced before the embargo) indicates that they were NOT bought on Us soil.

An alternative explanation is that he has gotten the box as a gift, but in the times during and after the wars there was a shortage of pretty much everything like salt, sugar, cloth, coffee etc. so a box of cigars would be a pretty shitty gift untill mid 1950's...

 

[Flowing]

I just started rolling my own because it's too damn expensive to buy cigars in Canada! I've always been into DIY from homemade instruments to homemade wine, beer and cheese.