Newbie to cigar world. I have fell in love with it and spent a good amount at local B&M before someone suggested this website. Glad I found it even though I haven’t won anything yet as I’m still trying to figure it all out. Not really looking for singles as Colorado can get expensive with the stupid excise tax and looking to pick up samplers and 5 packs.

Any suggestions on best days to buy/bid? Or cigars to try?

Yeah, there's other online retailers that don't collect excise tax for your state.

Get out there and find em.

Fellow Colorado BOTL...start low and don't forget to add that stupid tax with the shipping into your final price. Good luck!

I will definitely have to find those other retailers

Find a listing you want to try, set a max bid early, and see what happens. Over time you'll see what gets snapped up and what doesn't.

Once you win one, bid on ALL the lots. Maximize that shipping investment. All of them. You'll figure out storage later. No this plan doesn't help with the tax thing

Howdy B., welcome aboard. You’ll find excellent advice and friendly feedback here. May I suggest that you check out the thread on commonly used acronyms and the thread for “noobs”. I’m a noob myself. You can read some awesome reviews and discussion in the “whatcha smoking azzhats…VII” thread. Feel free to jump in when you see what it’s about. Another area you might want to lurk around in for a while is the “trades” section. Get a feel for what’s going on and how things work, get to know some of the BOTL here. You can learn a heck of a lot just by reading these threads and participating. I strongly encourage you to get in on the whatcha smoking azzhats thread and you will get a lot of details and directions from there. Glad to have you.

Man, you are doing this the right way. Get involved with the discussion before buying a whole bunch of boring.

Good advice from the above posts. Auctions can be fun, but keep perspective. Over time, if you stay invested in the hobby/pastime, you will discover cigars you like and cigars that are boring and cigars you don't like. As you begin to build up a little collection (basically a stash that provides choice to smoke at any given time) it is best to have cigars you actually like as opposed to the other two options.

Well you don't know what you don't know. So how do you avoid buying too much in the boring and don't like categories? Follow the threads mentioned above like the smoking azzhats thread. Try and buy a few fivers of affordable smokes that seem to be popular (see warning below) or appreciated or possibly some multiple sampler fivers of decent smokes (you might have to learn a bit here as probably you'll have to shop elsewhere). Then join in the nOOb PIB trade and get involved. If you have a few accepted smokes to offer, the return trades will bring additional variety for you to try. Before long you will spend ALL of you disposable income on great cigars and you'll fit right in here within the asylum. Sounds great, right?

All kidding aside, the purchasing and trading advice stands. Buying a basic stash of respectable cigars (they don't have to be expensive, you'll learn what this means) will give you some ammunition to get you into trades which gets you into a larger variety to try. There are hundreds of respectable, affordable cigars and buying and trying them all in 5 or 10 or boxes is much more difficult than getting involved in a little trading.

A little warning: There are "Big Brand Names" that are easy to buy and they sell a lot of cigars. They don't generate significant excitement in trade threads, but some are solid staples in many humidors. There are Boutique Brands, some are fairly big and popular, that aren't cost prohibitive that have earned respect. Read up and see if you can pick up a little info on the latter. They are generally more desirable in the trade threads because even more seasoned smokers may like to try them.

Welcome and join in

Thanks Tiver. Sending you a PM to find out more about trading.

Jeebling I definitely need to find that acronyms post. And I’m also going to read up on those suggestions for threads.

B. , back up one from the “trades” section and go to “cigar discussion “ and scroll down, it is only 5 or 6 threads down. I’m attempting to provide a link but I usually screw this up.

https://www.cigarbid.com/Forum/c/posts/612357/NEWBIES-INFO-PLEASE-READ-v-2-1-3 

Looks like it worked. Try this one as well and I suggest you start on the very last page because that’s where the updated list is.

https://www.cigarbid.com/Forum/c/posts/617445/Commonly-Used-Acronyms-and-Abbrevs-Rev-1217 

Another good informative topic where you can learn a few things
https://www.cigarbid.com/Forum/c/posts/380264/CAT-Challenge-The-Thonginator 

I see Cheno is laying out the welcome mat !!!

Thanks for that Cheno. Definitely got me to chuckle. Such a great welcoming present.

Welcome to the world of cigars!

Try lots of stuff to figure out what flavors you like. Try different wrapper, binder, filler combos. Try tobac from different regions. Try each cigar twice before deciding you don’t like it. Then be prepared to revisit ones you didn’t like at first once your palate gets refined. Then start buying two, smoke one age one!

B - iffin' you take CMD's sage advice then you're gonna need more storage. 🇨🇮

Well just found a 100 count humidor on marketplace for super cheap. Time to fill her up.

As in FB marketplace? Prolly hasn't been used in a while so it will need to be re-seasoned. I got a free used humidor a while back. Pretty nice domed glass lid. 'Bout a hundred count. I lightly sanded and cleaned out the inside with isopropyl alcohol, then re-seasoned. Didn't want anything nasty hitchhiking from an unknown.

It just occurred to me to mention the Tuesday Power Hour auction on CBid. They sometimes have a great deal that you can snag BUT my experience is that that particular auction gets a heckuva lot of over bidding. You might try checking prices on fivers you want to try at the sister site to CBid which is Cigars International (CI). It’s the same company. Shipping prices are the same so it stands to reason that you would not want to bid more here on CB than you’d have to pay at CI.
ALSO, there has been some great advice shared in the forums about overbidding. One way to prevent that is to begin with a ‘rule” to go by. Such as never paying more than 50% or 70% of listed MSRP (whatever % you’re comfortable with). If you do win a bid, you’re going to have to pay shipping. So, you may as well try to catch a bid on something else to reduce your overall shipping costs. You can also go to your account settings and choose a day of the week you want your orders shipped. This means everything you’ve purchased is shipped together in one box and that keeps shipping costs low. Singles are generally more expensive per cigar than a fiver or tenski, especially if you buy a single and it ships separately. Suddenly you’ve got a very overpriced cigar.

These thoughts are just my opinions and observations. Other, more experienced brothers here can help you more.

Yes Tiver. Found on FB. It had a dried up 69% Boveda pack in it. I plan on getting some of those seasoning wipes, but didn’t think about alcohol to clean it out. I have 4 60 gram packs I was going to throw in it and get it back up once wiped down or buy one the those 8oz black ice humicare jars.