My focus is on words you are likely to run across in cigar literature written during the 19th century through the beginning of the modern era in 1960. Names and terms are those reported or used by 19th century writers, visitors to Cuba, industry publications and as found on pre 1920 artifacts.
For more definitions, Mary Coult’s 1952 DICTIONARY OF THE CUBAN TOBACCO INDUSTRY should prove helpful. Ernst Voges’ huge international TOBACCO ENCYCLOPEDIA (for which I’ve written dozens of definitions) is also recommended.
ad valorem
Taxes based on value, usually taken to mean the retail selling price. Ad valorem taxes are commonplace and controversial since it can be argued that the selling price includes the usually high ad valorem, thus it’s a tax on a tax.
additives
Substances added to tobacco and/or cigar boxes to flavor, make pleasantly odoriferous or to mask bad tastes and smells. Commonly used since the 1600’s, though generally denied by the industry. Flavoring formulae used by cigar factories were frequently secret and guarded. Some were quite elaborate, involving a dozen or more chemicals and natural substances.
adulterant
Harmful additives. In the 19th century, journalists, researchers and government investigators agreed that 15 - 20% of tobacco was adulterated. Pot smokers from the 1960’s remember a similar situation. Or not.
aging
The sequence of drying, curing, blending and storing tobaccos from field to finished cigar, which can take three or four years.
almacen
(Cuban Spanish) A warehouse in which tobacco is stored by a cigar or cigarette manufacturer. Also an establishment for the sale of wholesale leaf tobacco.
almacenista
(Cuban Spanish) A dealer who sells wholesale leaf tobacco.
aluminum
[1] A silvery metal used in printing, the burnished powder of which is used to create “silver” ink. [2] soft shiny metal used in manufacture of cigar boxes and five-packs since the turn of the 19th century; [3] metal used in thin sheets in lithographic printing, replacing limestone, brass and zinc for some press plates.
amarillo
(Spanish) Yellow. A seldom seen color of Cuban tobacco. In 19th century, this was a favorite color in the lowland countries of Europe. Yellow tobacco is primarily used for cigarettes. See also: claro; colorado; colorado claro; colorado maduro; maduro; oscuro; pajizo
Amsterdam
Capitol city of Holland (The Netherlands) which was, along with London, one of the great centers of world tobacco trade in the 18th and 19th centuries.
anillador / anilladora
(Cuban Spanish) Cigar factory worker who puts bands on cigars.
anillo
(Cuban Spanish) Ring; cigar band; decorated paper band often identifying the maker and/or vitola/frontmark. See also: cigar band.
apartador / apartadora
(Cuban Spanish) One of many names given to men and women who grade and sort tobacco. Escogedores, revisadores, rezagadores, repasadores and apartodores are also used depending on the region of Cuba and the sopecific leaf being examined.
arroz
(Spanish) Rice; a type of cigarette paper used in Cuba by the 1840’s.
art work
Any original hand-painted "sketch" created as an original artistic concept from which copies were manufactured in quantity. For any label to have changes in design (redesigned), an original art-work had to be made or revised. Sections of a work, especially the title, could be changed without affecting the rest of the work.
atados
(Cuban Spanish) According to Fairholt, a bundle of 51 cigars made in Seville and sold in Spain.
BN
Boxmaker’s and collector’s abbreviation for a standard type of all wood cigar box called a “boîte nature.” see boite nature
Bahia tobacco
Grown in Brazil as filler and wrapper since the 1500’s, most is used locally or shipped to Europe. Also called Brazil tobacco.
banda
(Cuban Spanish) Stemmed binder leaf used in a cigar factory to wrap the bunch of filler. Stemmed binder was used in the highest grades of cigar instead of capote, which is binder leaf that has not been stemmed.
bandera
(19th Century Cuban Spanish) Flag; a cigar which “stands out like a flag” to a cigar selector as not being uniform in color; classed as seconds they are usually sold to local individuals or to small chinchalles who marketed them under a different marca.
bands
See cigar bands.
barbacoa
(Cuban Spanish) The drying room: a department in a cigar factory where the filler is dried and blends are made.
barril
(Spanish) Literally, a barrel. In the stemming department of a factory, it is the work table of the female stemmers. When seeking a job, she asks for un barril. In factories, barrels are used to hold the filler in the drying and blending department. In the wholesale leaf trade barrels are used as an export container for stemmed tobacco.
beneficio
(Cuban Spanish) The practice os sprinkling high quality, but gummy, filler tobacco with a solution of betun, a liquid made from fermented tobacco stalks and stems.
binder
The piece of tobacco leaf used to shape and hold the filler in a cigar. The binder is unseen by the smoker as it is covered by the wrapper. Prior to the 1860’s most cigars were Spanish hand made, made without binder, the wrapper holding the filler bunch together. This was a difficult-to-make product, the best of which were made by very skilled workmen. When German, Dutch or English factories introduced the cigar mould in the mid 19th century, the use of binder and wooden moulds became the practice since the combination enabled less skilled (and lower paid) workers to make cigars. Use of binder became the typical practice more than a century ago.
blue mold
Serious plant disease resulting from an airborne fungus that affects tobacco plants when summers are cool and rainy. Can make an entire crop unmarketable in days.
bofeton
(Cuban Spanish) Lithographed sheet of paper covering the cigars in a box. In the U.S. it is called a “flap” if attached to the front of the box or “floating flap” if not attached. Sometimes incorrectly called a “top sheet” by label dealers, a name more correctly reserved for the piece of box wrap used on the top of a cardboard box.
boîte nature
bonche
(Cuban Spanish) Bunch; body of the cigar, consisting of filler and binder before the wrapper is applied. Used to refer to mould-made cigars.
bonded warehouse
book style (also, Booking)
(modern use) A rolling method by which the cigarmaker lays the filler leaves atop one another, then rolls them up like a scroll. Book style, or booking, is common in Honduras. The alternate style is based on the old Cuban method called entubar.
box
Traditionally, in the 1700’s and 1800’s, prior to the U.S. Civil War and tax laws which regulated the number of cigars in a container, a box of cigars held 1,000. When consumer size packaging was developed, smaller packages were named in accordance with the fraction of a standard “box” they represented. What you and I call a box of 100 cigars is known as a 1/10 box, a box of 50 as a 1/20 box, one of 25 as a 1/40 box, etc. These fractions remained the way orders and invoices between dealers and manufacturers were sent until the end of revenue stamps in 1959 which facilitated odd size packaging. These fragment centered descriptions are still seen today.
box wrap
(box makers’ term) Form of contemporary cigar box labeling consisting of three pieces of lithographed paper which literally wrap around an unprinted machine made cardboard box, covering all outside and some inside surfaces thus allowing colorful labels to be inexpensively machine applied. Consists of wrap, top sheet and inner label.
Bremen
Formerly important German cigar and tobacco center.
broadleaf
Generic term for certain types of quality wide-leafed cigar tobacco, especially grown in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Mexico.
broker
Independent person who brings cigar manufacturers together with wholesalers and retailers, often creating custom brands in the process. Brokers frequently buy and sell factory odd lots, left-overs and rejects.
bronzing
Often referred to as "gold-bronze" (or incorrectly, as "Gold leaf"). Lithographers used a fine metallic powder, made from bronze dust/powder (or aluminum, for a silver effect), which was applied in a machine called a "Bronzer" after all the other colors had been laid-down. The label received a sticky base of clear varnish in the appropriate areas, and the bronze was sifted, or "dusted", onto the surface where it adheres to the sticky areas. This gave titles, borders and art-work a gold, glistening effect, without the expense of real gold or other precious metals.
buckeyes
Small cigar factories, usually employing less than four persons, frequently only one. Sometimes defined as less than 10. Generally characterized by on-premises retail sales. Named after Ohio, the “buckeye-state” because that state’s mid-19th century propensity toward tiny factories.
bug
The name or emblem of the lithographer, box maker or union local which appears on a box or label.
bulk, to
The job of piling the bundles (matules) one above the other in the tobacco barns for the second phase of curing, which lasts until the tobacco is sold or graded.
bunch
Body of the cigar, consisting of filler and binder before the wrapper is applied. Usually applied to machine or mould made cigars.
bunching machine
Mechanical devices for making the bunch have been in development since the 1850’s, with greatly increased output attributed to particular successful styles. In 1850, an all Spanish hand made roller could make about 300 cigars a day. Modern bunch making machines using rolls of reconstituted tobacco can roll 5,000 or more cigars an hour.
bundle
When labels were printed in the litho house, finished orders were separated into piles of 100, 500 or 1,000, depending on the order. The bundle was quickly inspected ("fanned") for defective prints, and then wrapped in brown paper, or tied with string. A sample of the contents was pasted on the outside of the package before shipping or delivery.
burro (also called bulks)
The pile in which cigar tobacco is fermented, a process which can take place on farms, wholesalers or factories. Bulks can be six feet tall and are carefully monitored. If the heat level inside them gets too high, the tobacco can literally catch fire like a compost pile. The skilled workers who monitor temperatures will take the pile apart to slow the fermentation.
caballeria
Cuban farm of slightly less than 33 acres.
cabinet
cajetillas
(Cuban Spanish) Cigarette package made of cardboard or lithographed paper and usually containing 14, 16 or 20 cigarettes.
cajillas
(Cuban Spanish) Small box or package, usually for cigarettes.
cajón
(Spanish) Box. Wooden box in which Cuban cigars are retailed, usually containing 25 or 50 pieces (i.e. 1/40th or 1/20th format).
Canary Islands
Spanish-owned islands off the coast of Africa which has developed as a cigar industry in the modern Castro era. Cigar boxes marked as having come from the Canary Islands are post-1960.
canasta
(Spanish) A broad shallow basket for carrying tobacco leaves in Cuban fields or factories.
candela
Green wrapper grown primarily in Cuba. The color is attained in the curing process. Also called double-claro.
cap
A circular piece of wrapper leaf glued to the head of a cigar for appearance.
capa(s)
(Spanish) The outside wrapper leaf of a Cuban cigar.
capadura
Leaf cut from ground suckers, generally from Remedios or Santa Clara area of Cuba. Heavy and gummy, it often adds flavor and odor to cigar tobacco blends. ALSO: very popular heavily advertised brand of NYC cigar named after R. Capadura Brown, an 1870’s manufacturer, distributor and entrepreneur. Brand was eventually absorbed into Straiton & Storm, and thereafter into General Cigar, who ultimately resold it.
capote
(Cuban Spanish) Unstemmed binder leaf, in contrast to banda.
carrot
Four hands of tobacco form a carrot. A hand is a bunch of 35 to 70 leaves, the better the quality the fewer the number.
casa de tobaco
(Spanish) Curing barn on a Cuban vega. After the tobacco has been cut in the field, it is carried to the curing barn where it goes through the curing process. If the tobacco is cut in mancuernas (two leaves with a section of stalk between them) planters usually hang it on poles placed on frames out doors, usually in the field, until it wilts. It is then taken into the
curing barn. Curing barns run east-west so that the sun heats only the rear ends of the building in the early morning and late afternoon. Depending on their location, barns are roofed or completely covered with palm leaves.
caution notice (CN)
cedro
(Spanish) Cedar, the traditional wood for cigar boxes because it is aromatic and impervious to insects. Cigars en cedro are typically individually wrapped in an ultra thin sheet of cedar then put in glass or aluminum tubes. The Cental American Honduran cedar once used by the cigar industry is a hardwood, distinctly different from the soft North American red cedar. Generally a misnomer as most ‘cedar’ used by the cigar industry is mahogany or redwood sprayed with cedar scent.
cellophane
Cellophane was first used to protect individual cigars in the mid 1920’s and remains popular with makers of inexpensive and medium priced cigars today. The use of individual cellophane wrapping made it possible to print short run special advertising, such as for political candidates, weddings and births on the wrapping for each finished cigar. In cigar factories large and small, school-age children were hired to slip the cello tubes around cigars in the 1920’s and 30’s, especially when decorated wrappers were printed for the holiday season. One old timer remembers being paid “a penny a hundred and glad to get the work.” In he late 1950’s only the bakery and meat industries used more cellophane than tobacco manufacturers.
chaveta
(Spanish) Curved flat blade about 4” to 6” across with no handle used by Cuban and other Latin cigar makers; called a “Cuban blade” in the U.S. where knives with handles are preferred by most cigar rollers. It is also used flat in rolling (evening) a cigar.
cheesecloth
Used to cover tobacco fields to lessen the effects of the sun’s rays and thus obtain wrappers of a light color. Calixto Lopez is credited with introducing cheesecloth into Cuba at the beginning of the 1900’s, using it on his farm named Cuainacabo in Pinar del Rio. Cheesecloth is often used in the Partido and Vuelta Abajo regions.
cheroot
Specific type of thin cylindrical cigar open and square cut on both ends. Wrappers on cheroots, like those on stogies, were frequently rolled perpendicular to the bunch rather than on the diagonal like cigars. Cheroots typically are rolled without binder. Though some were made in the US, the world centers of cheroot production were Manila, Burma and India. It is NOT correct to use “cheroot” or “stogie” as a synonym for cigar.
chest
chinchales
(Spanish) Bedbugs; small cigar factories, called buckeyes in the U.S. Usually less than four workers. Sometimes legally defined as less than 10.
chromolithography or chromo
The technique of making multi-colored pictures, printed from a series of stone or zinc plates, the impression from each being in a different color.
cigar
HISTORY: The story of cigars begins before recorded history when that first human used burning rolled up tobacco leaves for pleasure. Various South and Central American civilizations carried on the practice and by 1500, when the New World met the Old, the Indians of the Americas used tobacco in every form known today and a few others best forgotten. The Caribbean Taino encountered by Rodrigo de Xeres and Luis de Torrès reportedly smoked cigars. Until the late 1700’s cigars made in Cuba stayed in Cuba and most of the tobacco sent to Spain for use by the crown stayed in Spain. It wasn’t until the occupation of Havana by the British in 1762 that most Europeans and Americans got their first taste of Cuban cigars.
After the liberalization of Cuban trade laws in the early 1800’s, cigars became all the rage in Europe and the US, with more than 5,000 factories established in the United States and virtually every European country before 1850. Development of numerous strains of good quality cigar tobacco in the northern US, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Sumatra kept the cigar market full of quality products, especially during the last quarter of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th, a period referred to as the cigar’s Golden Age (1878 - 1915). As many as 30,000 factories made cigars in a single year, offering cigars under more than 1,000,000 brand names, mostly custom. Approximately six billion US cigars were produced annually, few of which were exported. Makers of cigar moulds offered more than 3,000 different sizes and shapes of cigar, from three inches to nine, with most turn of the century cigars bulbous in shape and between four and five inches long.
Highly competitive, with low profit margins the rule, cigar makers and retailers are famous for gimmickry in cigar shape, brand names, advertising images, and packaging.
The cigar industry began a decline around 1920, the result of increased competition from the modern blended cigarette, changing tastes, women smokers, a faster paced urban life, and the influence of the movie industry in which cigarette smoking was portrayed as chic. The fully automated machine-made short filler cigar first appeared on the market in 1917 and had taken over the low and medium priced industry by the end of the 1920’s, driving most hand made shops out of existence. The Great Depression put yet more marginal makers out of business, reducing the total number of cigar factories worldwide to less than 4,000 by the start of WWII.
Cigar history in the National Cigar Museum arbitrarily ends with the changes in the tax and packaging laws of 1959 and the Castro revolution in Cuba. Corporate buy-outs and subsequent closings of marginal brands, and flood of Cuban factory relocations changed the cigar business into something quite different from its previous Golden Age.
cigar bag
Simple rectangular paper bag in which cigars bought individually by customers were packed to protect them against damage. They sometimes have narrow partitions, also made of paper, on the inside to keep the individual cigars separate and to provide an additional protection for the wrappers. All forms are generally printed with the brand name of a cigar, the cigar maker or other advertising. Mostly used 1850 to 1930.
cigar band
Removable paper ring wrapped around individual cigars or small bundles of cigars, usually containing the brand name of the cigar or the semi-meaningless word “Havana.” Theories abound about who, where, when and why the first cigar was encircled with a paper band. English authors report receiving cigars banded with fortune-cookie style epigrams as early as 1810. Downright silly legends relating bands to tobacco stained fingers, demanding queens and other folk tales give way to the practical business decision by leading mid 19th century Cuban factories to market their product with each cigar exposing their brand name as part of their effort to thwart rampant counterfeiting by English and other merchants.
Bands with prize awards printed on the back existed as early as the 1860’s in the U.S. Cigar bands attained little popularity until the 1890’s when printing technology permitted cheap gaudy embossed red and gold bands, pictorial bands, and simple monochromatic bands at very low cost. Collecting bands was one of the largest hobbies for kids from 1895 to 1930, resulting in thousands of small band collections continually turning up in estates today. A famous set of bands depicting US Presidents from Washington to Teddy Roosevelt (1904-08) was sold for decades in glassine envelopes in dime stores for less than a quarter yet brings $50 up for a mint set today. Few American cigar band sets are known, whereas European bands were continually issued in sets widely available through dealers or on the internet today. Band collecting, long moribund, has undergone great revival in recent years resulting in rising prices for pictorial, large, or otherwise unusual bands.
cigar boxes
COLLECTING: Collecting decorated and novelty cigar boxes is an increasingly popular hobby in both Europe and North America. Trimmed nailed wood boxes with interesting labels, novelty boxes in unusual shapes and printed tin boxes are the most popular. Salesmen’s samples, vanity labels, and various themes such as sports, medicine, politics or pretty girls are frequently objects of collector’s attention. A handful of 19th century boxes have sold in excess of $1,000 but wonderful early 20th century examples can be found as cheap as $20. Boxes made after 1960 are often inventive and can usually be obtained for less than $10 each. Great caution is urged regarding “prices” in price guides as they are rarely accurate regarding tobacco collectibles in general.
cigar labels
Paper used to “trim” a cigar box includes: (1) one-inch wide edging, (2) a printed 6” high by 4” wide outside label which was glued on the outside lid or on one end of the box prior to 1880 and a 4” by 4” label used thereafter, (3) liner, blue at first but white/cream later on, which covered the inside sides and bottom of the box, (4) an inside cigar label which covered the inside lid, (5) liner on the insides and inside bottom, (6) flaps of paper that lay between the cigars and the label on the closed inside lid, (7) top ovals, (8) nail/signature tags, (9) banners applied to the inner label and (10) price and other decorative inside tags. At first, inner and outer labels were black and white, though U.S. boxes with colored labels have been found as early as 1860’s. Cigar labels of the 19th century, and from some companies up to the 1930’s, were generally stone lithographs. Labels were usually designed by staff artists or by free lancers who sold them to one of the two dozen or so cigar label printers that accounted for 90% of the label business nationwide. The earliest labels are remarkable examples of the finest black and white pictorial graphics of the day. Labels from the 1880’s are frequently recognizable by a naive quality accompanied by soft pastels or flat bright colors. The gilded and embossed 1890-1920 labels took on an entire new look, brilliant in color and execution, achieving what many collectors and commercial art historians regard as the high point of commercial illustration art. As cigar markets softened and fewer cigar companies were competing in the 1930’s, cigar labels became simpler though frequently employing dramatic color and design to rival the best of the past. Twentieth century printing technology enabled cameras to play a larger role in cigar label production resulting in interesting vanity labels and lower prices for stock labels sold to cigar companies. Cigar label salesman called on large cigar makers, wholesalers, and box makers offering a steady line of new labels based on the latest sports hero, theatrical offering or natural disaster. Label collecting has boomed as a hobby in the past twenty years. As a result, catalogs from US, European, and Cuban label printers bring premium prices from collectors today. More than 1,500,000 different cigar labels were made between 1860 and 1960. US cigar boxes were also required to carry an additional label called a Caution Notice (1868-1910). After 1910, the Notice was printed directly on the box.
cigar packaging
Until 1865, cigars were generally shipped in wooden boxes or crates of 250, 500, 1000, 5000 and 10,000 from factories in Cuba, Spain, Philippines, Sumatra, Hamburg, New York, Philadelphia and other cigar making centers. Wholesalers and retailers repackaged the cigars in sizes to suit their customers. Most retailers sold cigars loose from large plain boxes, frequently with little or no indication of the cigar maker or brand name. Starting in the early 1830’s, Cuban cigars were branded with the maker’s marca, a combination of brand name, maker and other optional information. Most marcas were oval, but type, decorative elements and graphics were often combined to more fanciful designs to be burned or stamped on packages to identify the contents and maker.
In the second quarter of the 19th century, small, sealed and guaranteed consumer size packaging was popularized by Cuban cigar makers in an effort to thwart misrepresentation of Euro