All About Cigar Bands
There are a lot of aspects to smoking cigars and one of them is the band that encircles cigars. I don’t know about you but I know a lot of cigar smokers that do not really pay that much attention to the cigar bands. In fact, some cigar smokers just immediately remove the band and then throw it away before smoking. On the other hand, other smokers make it a point to leave them on.
So are cigar bands really important? Where did they originate from anyway? According to Garson Smart in his article, “Gustave Bock, a Dutch immigrant who owned a cigar factory in Cuba in the 1830s, is credited with being the first to place a paper band around his cigars. (Bock’s “cigar band” was just a paper ring with his signature on it.)”
This was supposed to originate from the fact that fake Cubans proliferated in the early 19th century. This was because the cigars back then were generally left unmarked. The manufacturers back then didn’t really pay much attention to the packaging and there were no proprietary marks on the cigars themselves.
After Gustave Bock started his cigar band practice, other cigar makers in Cuba started to follow suit. By the time half of the 19th century was gone, majority of the Cuban cigar makers were using cigar bands. More than preventing fakes, the practice of using cigar bands also helped create brand consciousness.
Actually there are different versions of how the cigar band was started. The one that most in the industry agree with is that the band was made because women in England were smoking cigars when they first took off. The result were tobacco stains on the hands and on the gloves that they wore back then. As a result the band was placed on the cigar so that it would not stain the white gloves or fingers. After that, it became an opportunity for Cuban cigar makers to promote their brand.
Oh I haven’t heard of the version about the women in England. Thanks for the info!