Cigars have been imported from Europe and Cuba since the 1700’s, and taxed since shortly after the Revolutionary War. It wasn’t until the U.S. Civil War, however, that stamps were issued to put on boxes of cigars to show taxes had been paid.

    The 1866 Customs issue is found both plain and with the words “Internal Revenue” crossed out and the word “customs” hand inscribed by the tax inspector.

    The stamp issued in 1867 is the same as 1866 but green rather than orange brown.  Stamps are almost 13” long. The building is the U.S. Treasury. Although approximately 10,000,000 cigars were imported from Cuba and elsewhere, these stamps are rare, on or off a box. Please contact the Cigar Museum if you find one.

    Like the excise tax stamps that kept basically the same design from 1878 to 1910, the import stamp issue of 1879 remained in use until 1904 when it was replaced by an entirely new size and design. A minor change took place in 1895 when the requirement to date import stamps was temporarily dropped.  The “18___” in the right panel was changed to space for a serial number, printed “No.___.”   The 50 denomination was printed in red after 1895 but color did not change on the 25 or 100. The 25 was nearly 10” long and the larger denominations about 13 inches.

      Information on the stamp includes serial number, port of entry, means of entry, and typed, stamped or manuscript signature of the inspector. After 1931 inspectors were called customs officers.

    The 1904 stamp was issued in 25, 50, 100, 250 and 500 denominations, but as usual larger denominations are almost never seen.

    President Grant is a ship in The President Lines, a major international freight and passenger carrier founded in the mid 1800’s and active today with offices in 80 countries worldwide. Names of more than a dozen different Presidents can be found on import stamps. They do not refer to living people, nor are they the purchaser of the cigars as some hopeful ebay sellers have claimed.

    The issue of 1871-1873 displays a portrait of Ulysses S. Grant, then President of the U.S. The practice of honoring political and other figures on currency, coinage and stamps was later prohibited.  Like the previous issue, this one has various commercial counterfeit look-alikes advertising various brands of cigars. I would like buy or photograph any you might  find.

1873  to 1875  &  1875 to 1879 import

The imported cigar stamp of 1873 is the first to have denominations, reflecting changes in tax laws. The design of 1873 and 1875 is identical except Harrison replaced Grant in 1875. Color changes on the 25’s but 50’s and 100’s from 73 and 75 are the same color. The 25’s are approximately 10” long, the 50 and 100 nearly 15 inches. All import issues

before 1879 are rare on or off boxes.

    Passengers arriving from Havana  frequently had their luggage searched from the 1800’s on. When cigars were found in passenger luggage, inspectors were authorized to collect the appropriate taxes and use methods other than standard customs stamp to indicate that taxes were paid.

Both the overprinted stamp and the round rubber cancellation are from 1933 and rare, as is the undated Nogales “port” of entry stamp.

    If you see a US Customs stamp prominently displayed on the top of a box it is usually not an import stamp. Instead, it certifies the cigars were made of Cuban tobacco in a bonded ware-house in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Tampa, New York, Key West or Trenton, NJ. They’re called “Manufactured in Bond stamps,” dated between 1913 and 1953, come in two sizes and are found with various text identifying the type of tobacco and whether hand or machine made.

 

    Bonded warehouses were originally created to cut manufacturing costs of high grade cigars. Import duties on Cuban cigars have always been high. It was much cheaper to import Cuban tobacco and made the cigars in the U.S. The same LA CORONA cigar made in Trenton of Cuban tobacco retailed for half the price of the same cigar made of the same tobacco but made in and imported from Cuba.

 

Two dates are found on the left side of Bond stamps: Long ones usually read “Act of Oct. 3, 1913”  and short ones “Tariff Act of 1930.” The Series date on the right side is the more important as it gives the date a particular stamp was first issued. Series were typically used for a decade or two so those are not the date of the box.

 

Beginning with the Series of 1953, Manufactured in Bond stamps were shortened. The design was similar, still authorized for the same half dozen cities, but the descriptions were less descriptive, omitting whether machine or hand made.  

 

The variety of available Manufactured in Bond stamps has never been fully cataloged.

 

It is sometimes possible to read the date in the perforation cancellations. Watch for upside down and backwards cancellations. For a challenge, try to read the bottom stamp. Hint: the cancellation is in three lines, company, date, place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    With the passage of the Pure Food and Drug law of 1906, many people felt that cigar makers should be banned from falsely using the term “Clear Havana Cigars” for cigars which were not made entirely of Cuban tobacco (which is what the phrase supposedly means). Food and Drug officials refused, basically saying “one form of tobacco was as harmful as another. We will pass laws prohibiting adding weeds or cabbage leaves but we will not dictate the types of tobacco in a cigar.”

    Proponents of the ban took a new tack, and in 1913 succeeded in getting the laws governing manufacture in Bonded Warehouses changed. Bonded Warehouses were already a clever tax dodge which permitted cigar companies to import Cuban tobacco without paying taxes, store it in a warehouse, make it into cigars in that same ware-house and then pay tax on the cigars when they left the warehouse. Since taxes on both raw tobacco and finished domestic cigars were much less than on imported cigars this was a huge tax advantage. The new law read:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    Initially the long version stamps indicated the manufacturing process used to make the cigars, all well and good in the pre-machine age. As more and more cigars, including mid-price and expensive ones, were machine-made, cigar makers lobbied to have the law changed. Stamps issued after 1953 read whether made of long or short filler but no longer indicate whether hand or machine made.

    Both perforated and rubber-stamp cancellations have been permitted since 1913.