Thompsons? LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    

Why?

QuoteFNA - 1/31/2008  9:22 AM

Thompsons? LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
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"If it bleeds..we can kill it"

Why?

I can venture a guess. Thompsons overcharges massively, sometimes sells stale and bug-infested merchandise, sells awful house brands, seldom offers anything but boxes and boxes of cigars without ways to sample the merchandise first. I bought a sampler of theirs at an attractive price that included a dry and bug-infested Romeo and Juliet last year. Boxes of premium cigars often cost over $100 more than their competitors.

Bad luck, huh?

I have smoked Thompson products on and off since the 70s and have never received any bug-infested nor stale products.  Maybe I don't buy enough from them.

As I noted elsewhere, I just bought 20 Perdomo Reserve Maduro perfectos, selling elsewhere for $6 each (in quantity packs) for under $2 each.  

I've recently purchased RP Vintage '92, Gurkha, A. Fuente, La Gloria Cubano, CAO Brazilia and Italia (and other primo smokes) essentially as singles (a sampler)  for 1.85 each.  As opposed to being more, that is actually much less than generally paid elsewhere.

Within the last year CI haas advertised for sale mazos of 12 Gurkha Centurian #1s for $99.  Thompson has advertised full 24 count boxes of Gurkha Master's Select #1s for $160.

And yes, the box is their primary unit - but that's the cigar business, isn't it?

Sure, most of their prices are high compared to other major catalog retailers (not all), but they are competitive with traditional cigar shop prices.

My point is you shouldn't run screaming (or laughing) from any seller, because you can find deals everywhere.  I have also noted I have had some problems with Thompson, but they have been very minor - certainly nothing in the nature that you describe and I have purchased hundreds of cigars from TCC (and no, I'm not ashamed to admit it).

I don't expect to change the minds of those who have already made them up, but I don't want to discourage other readers from the open-minded (not saying you are closed-minded) cigar shopping philosophy that I have found to serve me best.

It's all in matter of preference.  I like CI, but I wouldn't expect everyone to go running over there and making ALL of their purchases from them.  It's just a matter of who you like and who you are comfortable with.

Obviously FNA has more purchases at TCC under his belt than I do. As for "the cigar business", many websites sell singles or 5-packs. I have NEVER bought a box of cigars I hadn't tried first and how else do you try them? I also haven't bought a whole box in over 25 years, but I quit smoking between 23 and 2 years ago. The only boxes I recall buying were Royal Jamaicans back in the 70s. There are just too many cigars out there for me to commit to buying 20 of one kind. I'm a whore.

Quoteljlemer - 1/31/2008  9:11 PM

Obviously FNA has more purchases at TCC under his belt than I do. As for "the cigar business", many websites sell singles or 5-packs. I have NEVER bought a box of cigars I hadn't tried first and how else do you try them? I also haven't bought a whole box in over 25 years, but I quit smoking between 23 and 2 years ago. The only boxes I recall buying were Royal Jamaicans back in the 70s. There are just too many cigars out there for me to commit to buying 20 of one kind. I'm a whore.

That's exactly the way I feel about buying cigars.  I'm not going to put out all that money for a box when I haven't tried one to begin with.  And for the record, I have yet to buy an entire box.  But I imagine that purchase is on the horizon sooner or later!

"many websites sell singles or 5-packs"

This is true, but many also use what I am pretty sure is the basic unit of currency in the cigar business, the box.

I just visited a site out of Delaware for the first time earlier today (something "Duck").  All they sell are boxes and bundles, and they are not alone in that.

I see CI and JR mentioned quite a bit here.  When you thumb through their respective catalogs what do you see?  Page after page of boxes of cigars offered for sale.

I could be wrong, but I think you will find that most cigar retailers, especially catalog retailers, and even among those "many websites sell[ing] singles or 5-packs" that you cite, offer far more selection by box than by singles or packs.

Among my thoughts is, why would they stock so many boxes offered for sale only as boxes if what they mostly sold was something other than boxes.  Especially considering that the mark-up, therefore the sellers' profit, is so much higher on singles and packs.

QuoteFNA - 2/5/2008  3:43 PM
Among my thoughts is, why would they stock so many boxes offered for sale only as boxes if what they mostly sold was something other than boxes.  Especially considering that the mark-up, therefore the sellers' profit, is so much higher on singles and packs.

There seems to be a huge mark-up on singles.  But then again, just with anything else, if you buy in bulk, you end up saving a bit of money.  Just look at the Sam's Clubs and similar places.  If you were to just go to the regular ol grocery store and get the same amount, you'd pay a lot more.  Same thing with cigars.  Case in point:  a Don Diego Grande single at CI is $4.50.  A box of them is $69.95, which is only $2.59 per stick.

There doesn't seem to be, there is.

That's why  you see freebies offered as "69.99 value" when the company offering the freebie sells the same cigars themselves for $30 - they are telling you list price as singles.

Really, the only cigar I have ever seen going 'box price' as a single is the Davidoff 100th Anniversery.

But that is just my point -  there is more money to be made selling singles, yet retailors always have a greater selection of boxes, because a box of cigars is really the basic unit of cigar sales.

QuoteFNA - 2/5/2008  11:44 PM

There doesn't seem to be, there is.

That's why  you see freebies offered as "69.99 value" when the company offering the freebie sells the same cigars themselves for $30 - they are telling you list price as singles.

Really, the only cigar I have ever seen going 'box price' as a single is the Davidoff 100th Anniversery.

But that is just my point -  there is more money to be made selling singles, yet retailors always have a greater selection of boxes, because a box of cigars is really the basic unit of cigar sales.

Cigar dealers who are responsive to their clientele determine what they want and provide it. Some clients don't want to buy boxes, either because they can't afford them or because they want to keep sampling until they find a cigar that they want to smoke a whole boxful of. No one said this group of smokers was a dominant or trivial force in the industry. Those of us who don't buy boxes have no need for sites that only sell boxes.

If one buys one's 5 packs at Cigarbid and other select sites, they can be acquired very cheaply. Nobody who only buys boxes can enjoy the variety we enjoy without buying a garageload of boxes. Since a significant proportion of cigars bought turn out to not be worthy of being smoked again, I'd rather have 4 left that I don't like than 19 or 24. Cigar passes are useful for distributing cigars you think others might like more than you did.

Since cigars sold individually came out of a box, boxes are a basic unit. I  have reviewed 185 different cigars at Cigar Geeks in less than 6 months.
That would be impossible if I only bought boxes.