Glossary - Definitions
A National Cigar Museum EXCLUSIVE © Tony Hyman
My focus here is on words you are likely to run across in cigar literature 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 publica-tions and as found on pre 1920 artifacts.
For more definitions, Ernst Voges’ huge international TOBACCO ENCYCLO-PEDIA (for which I’ve written dozens of definitions) is 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.
amarillo
(Spanish) Yellow. A seldom seen color of Cuban tobacco. In 19th century, this was a favorite color in the lowland countries of Europe. 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.
anillo
(Cuban Spanish) Ring; cigar band; decorated paper band often identifying the maker and/or vitola/frontmark. See also: cigar band.
arroz
(Spanish) Rice; a type of cigarette paper used in Cuba by the 1840’s.
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.
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.
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
(19th Century 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, a name more correctly reserved for the piece of box wrap used on the top of a cardboard box.
boîte nature
(box makers’ term) Wooden cigar box originally made of mahogany, but now mainly of redwood. It is glued, with machine-made locked (interlocking) corners and a collar running around the inside edge which helps to keep the box airtight when shut. In addition, it has two hinges and a clasp which were nailed to the box prior to World War Two and generally machine stapled thereafter. Boxes must match all these characteristics to be classified as a boite nature box. Packages that meet some ot all of these characteristics are known as semi-boîte nature boxes, and are custom designed for each customer. Traditionally, boîte nature packages had no advertising labels either inside or outside the box; instead the marca, brand name, and/or maker was printed in an oval, or similar form, in black ink directly on the box lid inside and out. First seen around 1900. Most commonly used for 5¢ cigars in the 1920’s and 30’s. Abbreviated BN. <more>
bonche
(Cuban Spanish) Bunch; body of the cigar, consisting of filler and binder before the wrapper is applied
bonded warehouse
A high security building in which tobacco imported into the U.S. from Cuba was held until taxes were paid or it was transshipped. Cigar factories were set up inside bonded warehouses and taxes paid on the resulting cigars, a cheaper rate than paying on cigars imported from Cuba. Bonded warehouses were in Tampa, Key West, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Trenton and New York. Manufactured in Bond stamps become a guarantee by the U.S. government that the cigars were made entirely of Cuban tobacco. Tampa and Trenton produced the most Bonded cigars. <more>
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.
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.
bunch
Body of the cigar, consisting of filler and binder before the wrapper is applied.
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.
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
(box makers’ term) Wooden retail cigar box fronted by one or two doors, in which the cigars can either lie flat or stand upright, often partitioned, or richly inlaid. May or may not have drawers or legs bringing it to a height of 28” more or less. Exotic woods were commonly used and the cabinets were normally fitted with metal hinges and a lock. Together with chests, cabinets were among the first type of cigar packaging used by Cuban and Spanish factories for presentations to guests, famous persons, royalty and other valued customers. They could hold from 100 to as many as 5,000 cigars. <more>
cajetillas
(Cuban Spanish) Cigarette package.
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) 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.
casa de tobaco
(Spanish) Curing barn on a Cuban vega.
caution notice (CN)
Notice required by the U.S. government to be pasted or printed on all cigar boxes 1868 to 1959 which cautions retailers to destroy the revenue stamp and not to refill the cigar box once emptied. <more>
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.”
chaveta
(Spanish) Curved flat blade about 4” or 5” 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.
cheroot
Specific type of thin cylindrical cigar open 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. Not a correct synonym for cigar.
chest
(box makers’ term) Fancy Cuban and Spanish retail size cigar box similar in purpose and overall design to cabinets but lacking doors, typically opening from the top. The general configuration is more like a trunk than a cabinet. During the Great Depression of the 1930’s many U.S. manufacturers of 5¢ cigars offered their wares in a great variety of simple but attractive chests in an effort to entice customers to buy the entire box. Unlike fancier Cuban chests, the inner label of depression era chests was frequently glued to a mirror on the inside lid so the smoker could offer the box as a jewelry or accessory box to a lady friend. A popular packing for Cuban and other high grade cigars today. <more>
chinchales
(Spanish) Bedbugs; small cigar factories, called buckeyes in the U.S. Usually less than four workers. Sometimes defined as less than 10.
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
Cigar boxes are containers in which cigars are retailed in contrast with decorative wooden after-market boxes called humidors sold empty by tobacconists and department stores, artisans and specialty shops to enable smokers to store cigars on a desktop. The classic form of cigar packaging, made from a variety of woods such as Cuban and Honduran mahogany, redwood, basswood, and more than twenty other rare and common woods. Cigar companies, box makers and collectors classify wooden cigar boxes as (1) trimmed nailed wood, (2) nailed wood with hardware, (3) boite nature, (4) semi-boite nature, (5) chests and cabinets, (6) uprights and (7) novelties or custom work. Boxes have been made of dozens of different woods, tin, aluminum, brass, silver plate, glass, plastic, cardboard, and other materials. Boxes are normally made to hold 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 or 250 cigars, though a few other sizes are permitted. They are often richly decorated. Nineteenth century cigar factories, large and small, frequently assembled their own boxes, often the task of children in a family enterprise. <more>
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 European cigars as Cuban by European retailers. These smaller packages were designated according to the fraction of 1,000 they represented. Boxes of one-hundred were referred to as 1/10ths. Boxes of 50 were 1/20ths and boxes of 25 were called 1/40ths. In the U.S., larger retail boxes of 250 and 500 were reserved for the very cheapest of cigars. The opposite was true in Cuba where large packages held the finest cigars by the finest factories. In the mid-1800’s, government action in both the U.S. and Cuba officially regulated cigar packaging to boxes of 25, 50, 100, 200, 250 and 500 cigars so they would be easy to count and tax.
Smaller size packaging for cigars became popular in the early 1890’s as boxes of 5, 10, 12 and 13 were introduced in response to small inexpensive packages of cigarettes beginning to flood U.S., South American and European markets. Cigars were packaged in individual cork-sealed glass tubes in the late 1800’s, but these were always packed inside a cigar package of legal count. Packages of 3, 7, 8 and 20 were introduced by the mid 1920’s. Government regulation of box sizes ended in 1959 permitting modern cigar makers the greatest latitude in package sizing.
MATERIAL: Cigar packaging has traditionally been in mahogany, incorrectly identified by early Spanish explorers as “Spanish cedar.” By the early 1900’s, cost cutting and forest stripping turned the box and cigar industry to redwood and dozens of lesser woods frequently covered with a thin veneer. These were typically trimmed with paper labels with pictures and/or text (see below). Experiments began with hand soldered tin boxes in 1870 but tin did not become popular for cigar packaging until the 1890’s after printing technology was developed which enabled full color graphics to be printed on tin. Tin cans reached their height of popularity in the 1920’s, used by makers of cheap cigars to cut the high costs of post WWI lumber. Advertising copy was either printed on the tin or pasted on paper labels. Tin has continued to be used in creative and colorful ways by a handful of modern companies. Tax officials in the U.S. lifted their restrictions requiring boxes to be made of wood in 1870, resulting in great experimentation in the packaging industry. The Golden Age (1880-1920) saw cigar boxes made of cardboard, tin, brass, silver plate, aluminum, glass, plastic, pottery, custom materials and various combinations of the above. These same materials remain popular for cigar packaging today.
DECORATION: After 1820 when Cuba cigar makers were permitted to ship directly to customers worldwide, barrels and crates of 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. U.S. and European cigar boxes were of simple design, frequently carrying only a word or two, sometimes a simple picture on one end of the box. Cigar makers in the U.S. and Europe seldom wanted to be identified as cigar consistency and quality were serious problems. That changed somewhat in the 1870’s with the introduction of newer better cigar tobaccos and humidified showcases in which to display them. Colorful inside labels began decorating boxes in an effort to attract the eye of the smoker by using pictures, puns, literary references, and every other topic imaginable. Baseball players and boxers, actors and actresses, poets and playwrights, politicians and bankers, generals and gamblers, children, pets, racehorses, railroad trains, dancing friars, dogs, cats, pigs and goats, even a pigeon who flew from Pensacola to Philadelphia in 23 hours got pictured on a cigar box. In 1914 there were 30,000 cigar factories, most of them located in New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, New Jersey and Ohio producing nearly 150,000 brands of cigars all packed in boxes. It is estimated that as many as 2,000,000 different brands of cigars appeared on the market between 1860 and 1960. Modern cigar packaging tends to be semi-boite nature with many clever and innovative boxes seen during the past three decades.
cigar press
Iron press in which wooden cigar moulds are clamped and tightly pressed for a few hours to help form the shape of the bunch.
cigar tubes
By the late 19th century cigar makers were packing individual large cigars into glass tubes as protection from drying out and to make an attractive presentation in an open box. Glass tubes were frequently associated with expensive cigars sold in boxes of 10 or 25 and remain in use today. Screw top aluminum tubes to hold individual cigars for retail display first appeared in the early 20th century. They were especially popular in the 1950’s for Manufactured in Bond 30¢ brands such as Garcia y Vega and Bering. Aluminum was lighter than glass, and less breakable, but had the disadvantage in not displaying the actual product. To protect cigars from rubbing against aluminum, thin sheets of wood resembling cedar loosely lined each tube. A few cigar makers have experimented with plastic tubes, but the marketplace does not seem to be impressed.
cigarillo
(Spanish) Cigarette. Popularly used in Latin countries and in pre-1950 US. When General Cigar Co. began heavily marketing an addition to its popular Robt. Burns line, a cigarette-like 5¢ machine made cigar called cigarillo, the definition popularly changed to refer to that type product. Typically modern cigarillos are made from finely chopped cigar tobacco machine wrapped in a homogenized paper-like leaf product called HTML.
cigarro
(Spanish) Small (less than 2” long) Cuban cigarette, generally made from lesser grades of cigar tobacco. At least one popular and expensive mid 19th century Cuban cigarette maker claimed to use Vuelta Abajo tobaccos exclusively. Cigars were called “tobacos” or “puros.” German label designers confused the word ‘cigarro’ with cigars, using it interchangeably on US and German cigar labels, making the word generally meaningless except on products originating in Cuba or a Latin American culture.
cigarro en papel
(Spanish) Cigarette wrapped in paper, rolled with cigar tobacco in Cuba, more generally simply called a cigarro.
claro
(Spanish) One of the five most commonly used color classifications for cigars. Describes a tan or light green colored cigar. See also: amarillo; colorado; colorado claro; colorado maduro; maduro; oscuro; pajizo
CMIU
Cigar Maker’s International Union. Founded in 1864. In 1880 the CMIU adopted the “blue label” stamp to be placed on every box of cigars rolled by Union workers. That date appears on all stamps issued between 1888 and 1974. Samuel Gompers, founder of the AFL in 1886, was President of NYC CMIU Local 144. Once powerful, progressive and influential with more than 25,000 members, a series of bad decisions and mechanization combined to make the CMIU ineffectual after WWI. Ultimately, the few remaining members were absorbed into the Grocery Clerks in the 1970’s.
color mark
A small piece of paper, stencil, rubber stamping or pencilled notation indicating the color of the cigars in a box. In addition to the five traditional marks used in the U.S., you will find, particularly on boxes after 1960, marks such as mild, candela, English Market, double claro, dark, etc.
colorado
(Spanish) One of the five most commonly used color classifications for cigars. Describes a red brown cigar. See also: amarillo; claro; colorado claro; colorado maduro; maduro; oscuro; pajizo
colorado claro
(Spanish) One of the five most commonly used color classifications for cigars. Describes a medium brown cigar. See also: amarillo; claro; colorado; colorado maduro; maduro; oscuro; pajizo
colorado maduro
(Spanish) One of the five most commonly used color classifications for cigars. Describes a dark red brown cigar. See also: amarillo; claro; colorado; colorado claro; maduro; oscuro; pajizo
colzoniellos
(19th Century Cuban Spanish) Cigars made from small unstripped leaves.