at my local cigar shop. Im absolutely outraged. I know they are counterfit cuz its the gold and navy label with "Republica Dominicana" below the word "Cohiba". To my knowledge Cohiba doesnt even make a dominican cigar with the gold and navy wrapper (With white squares, or circles in the counterfit's case, LOL).

Anyways...what should I do. Id love to get em busted. I dont really want anything out of it...just to see this store get in serious trouble.

~Tony

from one tony to another...

a local store (head shop, not cigar retailer per se) sells those. as i understand it, the cohibas you described are not "illegal." it has to do with the cohiba factory breaking up and scattering way back when, and when that happened the label got kind of split 3 ways. the non-cuban cohibas, aka the red dots, are of good quality. the dominican "yellow band" cohibas, however, are a far, far inferior smoke than either the red dots or the cubans. that said, the yellow bands are not "counterfeit" per se. they just are not the same quality of smoke as the cohibas that people recognize as THE cohibas are. i read an article about this recently. if i find the URL i'll post it for you.

ah... here it is. that didn't take long. 🙂

http://cigars.about.com/library/weekly/aa020302a.htm 

-antonio

i have smoked DR cohiba esplendidos and cohiba esplendidos from an isom.

the one from the dr are cheaper, about $2.00 ea, and smokeable.

the ones from that funny little island were about $10.00 or $12.00 and after a year in the humidor, i still couldn't draw through them.

Hello all, saw the Cohiba thread and wanted to share this link with you.

http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar/CA_Static/Counterfeit/countgal.html 

"Me thinks that thou protests too much."

I hope before you did anything to cause "serious trouble" ( in your words) to a local brick and mortar cigar shop - you read these posts or looked at the archives available here. I still don't understand the "outrage" - the guy was selling a legal cigar that even said Dom Rep on it - he wasn't trying to pass this as anything else - the fact that you didn't know about the various and assorted labels that the DR "Cohiba" was sold under should be reason for you to do some investigating first before calling General Quarters and trying to bring trouble to this guy..... Did you try talking to the owner about your concerns?

Morpheus5885 --- what did this shop do to you ...

... to warrant such a unwarranted and hateful revenge?

I'm still smoking a box of DR Yellow Label Esplendidos and enjoying every one of 'em. Can't speak for others, but mine are worth more than I paid. If you paid $2 to $6 for 'em, enjoy 'em. They are very smokeable. If you paid lots more then you might have a "bone to pick", but "buyer beware"....look around. You sure about the "navy"? Never came across a navy/gold label, but I wouldn't doubt they exist. Maybe they're counterfeiting the Yellow Label DR Cohibas now.

Rick
If you paid $10 for a Cohiba Esplendido that sells for $15 in the island, you either bought them from a very generous friend or they are counterfeit.

Rick is talking about Dominican Esplendidos, and very tasty they are too 🙂

http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar/CA_Static/Counterfeit/countgal.html 

That is actually what I read before I posted this post. So yes, I'm not ignorant, I did do my research. I just was wondering what could be done (legally). I am not a violent person by any means and would certainly not cause any harm to my local cigar shop. So technically, by reading the first article, Cavallo, if these cigars I have found (Black/yellow banded DRs) made from the Montecristi factory were imported after the court ruling, these cigars would indeed be illegial.

sorry for my third post...i meant to get all these in one but my browser messed it up.

http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar/CA_Static/Counterfeit/count_copage16.html 

That's the exact label on the cigar at my shop.

Unless cigar aficionado is wrong, they are illegial! I am right because I did my research first. So again I ask the initial purpose of my post...what should I do?

~Tony

What should you do??? Don't buy them! If it is a shop you like, talk to the owner, and buy something else. That is not the only cigar they sell is it???? JMO

yes, according to the about.com article, if it was brought in after the DR yellow bands were told "no more!" then it would be illegal.

the article also points out (and i've read elsewhere as well) that it's damned near impossible to tell if a yellow band was or was not brought in after the court date. so while it COULD be illegal (and you don't know for sure that it is), i don't know who you are going to find to enforce anything -- or even if it can be enforced.

i second smelly4tay on this. talk to the store manager and let him or her know of your concerns, and give him/her your opinion. it could well be that these are perfectly LEGAL 'gars that got in before the cut-off date.

i was browsing the sticks at a local head shop and saw a sign for "COHIBAS" - $2.50 -- the sign had Cohibas in quotation marks; they were not trying to fool anyone into thinking that these were the cohibas now famous in the US in the red dot variety of DR's.

did you examine the yellow band sticks for sale? i picked one up and eventually just bought the thing (it sucked a$$, for those who care), a churchie. by my estimation, it could very well have been a legal yellow band, because the cello on it was *very* old and *very* yellowed. too bad that so much time doesn't necessarily improve some cigars, but this one was definitely old.

if you're bothered that the store sells these, tell the manager. but it doesn't appear that they are trying to necessarily deceive the public. if they were, they'd be selling counterfeit red dots -- not quite possibly legal yellow bands. from a legal POV, though, i'd say you'd have to do a hell of a lot of digging to get anyone else up at arms about this. yellow bands are not rarely sold here; they are all over the place, including in the humidors of reputable cigar retailers.

if you want to be a sneaky boots and attempt to get this store in all kinds of trouble on your suspicion, though, feel free to pursue it. i'm sure there's some govt. agency out there somewhere who would be willing to look into it, shrug it off and leave it alone.