Stogie Tip: Cigar Auctions
Wednesday, August 16th, 2006In the past, we have directed our readers to great deals for quality cigars at bargain prices. Today, we’re going to share a few tips on finding bargain cigars on your own.
These days, instead of ordering cigars from catalogs with fixed prices, many people turn to cigar auctions to buy cigars in eBay-style markets. While not every item is going to offer you substantial savings, if you look patiently and don’t get caught up in bidding wars you can find some real bargains on good cigars.
While there are other auction sites, I’ve been using JR Auctions and CigarBid. Both work in mostly the same way.
JR Auctions is run by JR Cigars (obviously), while CigarBid is run by Cigar International. This is important because one of the first things you should do is check at what price they sell the item you are bidding on in their non-auction section. JR allows you to combine shipping between auction and non-auction items so there is never any reason to pay more. CigarBid orders cannot be combined with Cigar International orders, but the savings from combined shipping (usually just a few bucks) rarely justify spending more than CI’s retail price.
Despite this, cigar forums are filled with stories of people who get caught up trying to outbid someone for an auction item and end up paying too much. So I recommend deciding early how much you are willing to pay, setting auto-bid (where you enter the maximum amount and then allow the site to raise your bid as necessary) and then simply waiting…You may win, you may lose, but you’ll never overpay.
Finally, I highly recommend the 5 packs that CigarBid offers. If you have a cigar you really want to try, often a single stogie isn’t enough to decide if you really like it, but a full box is too large of an investment. Five packs let you really get to know a cigar, including determining its consistency. Just last week I grabbed two 5-packs (Rocky Patel Vintage 1990 and 1992) together for less than what Cigar International would have charged me for just one of them.
Now go out and fill up your humidor! Just don’t out-bid the Stogie Guys.
Word to the wise… Cigarbid can be very, very addictive! Be prepared to spend way too much, if thats possible.
Some questions about mail order and auction cigars. I know that Gary is running an experiment on how aging improves a cigar and you should leave them alone for a few months but just how long should my impatient self wait to smoke my prizes that came delivered via the 100+ degree UPS truck? And does any one site package and ship cigars better than another? My only experience so far is from famous-smoke.com and living near Baltimore their shipment over regular UPS ground arrived to me the very next day. Everything was well padded and in excellent condition but I made myself wait two weeks before trying anything just to make sure I was not wasting my money.
Thanks for all the tips you post on this site and for any suggestions you have on the mail order market.
zBob - Hello from Germantown MD! My wife is originally from Randellstown.
In answer to your questions. I think the most common thing is to wake at least a week maybe two before smoking what you buy. This gives the sticks enough time to adjust to your humidor.
To my knowledge, no one retailer does a better or worse job shipping stogies. Its because of this that folks wait and let the stogies adjust to their humidors.
You have cigar makers like Fuente and Torano who pack their own humdification devices in their boxes to keep them safe.
zBob - Jerry makes the most important point, that time in the humodor will prevent shipping conditions from negatively affecting your smokes.
Also, the location of the cigars is good to know, because if it is real close, then the time the cigar is in less than ideal conditions is diminished.
Here are where some of the online dealers are based:
J.R.- North Carolina
Cigar International/CigarBid- PA
Famous Smoke- PA
Thompson- FL
Two Guys- NH
Thomspon is Florida based?
yep… set up right next to Tampa International
[...] The answer, of course, is that you shouldn’t. So drop by your local cigar shop and pick a few sticks of whatever you’re considering purchasing a box of. Consistency and construction are hard to evaluate with just one smoke, so get a few. Five packs from cigar auctions are a great way to evaluate quality. [...]
You mention 5-packs. Have you ever checked into the S&H at CigarBid. It’s too much for even a single box — $6.50/unit for the first, $0.50 for subsequent units. You’d have to buy a lot of units to get the S&H/unit cost to a reasonable level — almost impossible for 5-packs and samplers. Since most cigars at auctions are priced about even, gross S&H amounts to a horrible tax-like extra if one is not careful.
JR & Famous are much more reasonable!!
I find that one of the best ways to overcome the shipping costs is to have a running list of the stuff you want to try and stock up when you make a big purchase. When you know that you are going to buy a box or a humidor in the near future, for yourself or as a gift, find someone with free shipping and add a few 5 packs to your order. Or check with your buddies, if you are going to spend $50 and they are too you can combine your forces and save. This may also work to split up multi packs that you buy and save even more. Many places offer free shipping on orders over $100 so you can go and tell your wife how much money you are saving her.
damn all these beautiful gir. Merrill Amram.
it seems like latley i’ve had a lot of cigars crack and fall apart. I use the stuff in the bottle and crystal(jell). Why am i having problems?