The amazing appeal of cigars and cigar-related items at auction has been demonstrated yet again with three remarkable sales events this spring, all of which produced some stunning results:

Dallas, Texas - May 22, 2010
A massive, hand-carved Cigar Store Indian from the late 1800s was expected to bring $20,000 - 30,000, but soared to $203,150 with the 19.5 percent buyer’s premium included.

“We expected a great response to this outstanding example,” said Tom Slater, director of Heritage Americana Auctions, “but this was really amazing.

“Its overall originality was definitely key to bidder enthusiasm. Most cigar-store Indians have been restored and repainted to the point where they don’t even convey a sense of age. This example, with its seemingly untouched original patina, clearly appealed tremendously to serious collectors.”

The statue stands 6 feet, 2 inches tall and is 20 inches wide. It was offered for auction by 78-year-old Nancy Wischnowski of Washington, D.C., who inherited it from her husband, who died in 1989. She noted that the piece sat in the basement of their home for more than 20 years, having been acquired before she married, in the 1960s or even earlier.

“I doubt that it was fully appreciated or valued when he was able to buy it originally,” she said. Although she knew that it had some larger value today…but not 7 - 10 times the original estimate! Wischnowski’s Indian is similar to the style of famed cigar-store figure sculptor Samuel Robb, but it is not attributed to him.

London, England - June 2, 2010
There is plenty of romance in the history of cigars, but the ties between cigar smokers and Britain’s immortal World War II leader Winston Churchill are perhaps the most solid of all.

Further proof came from yet another sale of an unsmoked cigar that belonged to Churchill that went for $3,069 at Christie’s on June 2, in the first of a three-session sale of a massive collection of Churchill memorabilia owned by publisher and former U.S. Presidential candidate Steve Forbes. The item, which actually sold for 2,125 British Pounds, was described as Lot 143 in the auction catalog:

"A havana cigar by Camacho, 165 mm x 18 mm, unsmoked, in a box inscribed ‘Hotel de Paris - Churchill Cigar. Dinner - April 1963.’ Provenance: ‘Sir Winston Churchill…gave me this cigar at Luncheon - Hotel de Paris [Monte Carlo] / 12th April 1963’ - Christofor Dunn.

Churchill had just arrived in Monte Carlo for a two-week holiday, staying as was his custom in the Hotel de Paris. He was accompanied by Anthony and Nonie Montague Browne, but Clementine stayed behind to spend Easter with her daughter Mary.

The cigar was expected to bring from $1,600 - 3,200 at the sale. It is clearly a Camacho Lonsdale (6 1/2 inches by 42 ring) and is almost certainly not from Cuba as Simon Camacho began making cigars under his own name in Miami in 1961 after leaving Cuba in the aftermath of the nationalization of the cigar industry by the Castro regime. The cigar looks to be in good shape, with the triple cap intact and only some slight damage near the foot.

The BBC reported that this specific lot was held up in British Customs for a while because of issues dealing with the importation of tobacco into the country, but was finally allowed in.

Although this is a complete and unsmoked cigar, it did not sell for as much as some cigars partially smoked by Churchill! A half-smoked La Corona from 1941 saved by a valet after the Prime Minister left for a Cabinet meeting, sold for 4,500 Pounds (about $7,180) on January 29!

London, England - June 21, 2010
The second Vintage Cigar Auction staged by C.Gars Limited of London offered 172 lots, of which 167 sold, many at stunningly-high prices. Some 53 of the lots sold for 1,000 British Pounds or more (about $1,492), with the top price of 9,500 Pounds ($14,176) paid for Lot 135, the rare Cuaba Salomones II Humidor. Issued in only 45 editions in 1999, it includes 45 of the Salomones II size (6 7/8 inches by 57 ring)in an elegant chest and sold for more than double the pre-sale projected price!

The rest of the top ten by final price:

Lot 75: The celebrated cabinet of 50 pre-embargo Romeo y Julieta Piramdos No. 1 (6 1/8 x 52) - reportedly Winston Churchill’s favorite post-War cigar - which sold for 6,400 Pounds ($9,550).

Lot 133: The “Che Humidor” by Elie Bleu from 2005, containing 68 specially-made cigars, sold for 5,200 Pounds ($7,759).

Lot 150: the 135-cigar Cohiba 35th Anniversary Humidor issued in 2001, sold for 5,000 Pounds ($7,460).

Lot 60: A cabinet of 50 Ramon Allones Magnums (5 5/8 x 46) from the 1960s, sold for 4,200 Pounds ($6,267).

Lot 100: A cabinet of 50 pre-embargo Dunhill Seleccion Suprema (Montecristo) No. 1 (6 1/8 x 42), which sold for 4,000 Pounds ($5,969).

Lot 106: A cabinet of 50 Dunhill Seleccion Suprema (Hoyo de Monterrey) No. 169 from 1966, sold for 4,000 Pounds ($5,969).

Lot 134: The Cohiba Siglo X Aniversario Humidor, containing 89 cigars with 15 each of the Siglo I-VI sizes (one Siglo I missing), which sold for 3,700 Pounds ($5,522).

Lot 99: A partial box of 35 (out of 50) Don Candido No. 502 (5 x 43) from the 1970s, which sold for 3,600 Pounds ($5,373).

Lot 149: A cabinet of 50 Cohiba Lanceros (7 1/2 x 38) from 1999, which sold for 3,600 Pounds ($5,373).

Two lots of ancient cigars - at least 98 years old - sold for relatively modest prices. A partial cabinet of 19 Cabanas Corona Grandes (5 3/4 x 40) sold for 380 Pounds ($567) and a partial cabinet of 28 H. Upmann Sonrisas (4 3/4 x 42 perfectos) sold for 580 Pounds ($866).

There was also plenty of action on Havana-made Davidoff and Dunhill-brand cigars. Of note was a cabinet of five Dunhill Havana Club giants - 9 1/4 inches by 47 ring in individual, slide-top coffins - which sold for 1,550 Pounds or $2,312…$462.40 per cigar!

However, that wasn’t the highest price paid for a single cigar in the auction! That honor went to a pre-embargo Partagas Visible Inmenso, a glass-tubed giant of 21 inches long and about 56 ring gauge, made for Jack & Charlie’s in New York (now known as the “21 Club”), which sold for 400 Pounds or $597! A replica of this cigar, made for the 11th Partagas Festival in 2002, sold for 160 Pounds ($239)!

It was a sensational auction and an event which is now firmly set on the calendar of cigar collectors worldwide. Congratulations to C.Gars Ltd. impresario Mitchell Orchant and his team; full details of all lots and final prices are available on the www.cgarsltd.co.uk Web site.