Personal experience with TSA and Cigars?

[markem]

Originally Posted by poker

I used to travel for a living (field service engineer) for years both domestically & internationally. TSA dosent give a rats @ss about your cigars (Cuban or non-Cuban) and focus on items they deem dangerous. I have traveled with banded cigars in both checked and carry on luggage. I never carry a torch style lighter. My cutter is usually always in my checked luggage if I bring one at all. Never had a problem to this day.

Just for the record US Customs is the one looking for contraband, not TSA.

but for the record, I almost always have a non-metallic torch lighter in my luggage shoved in the shaving kit. I use the cheapie from DealExtreme (which is changing to dx.com), specifically this one:
http://dx.com/p/compact-1300-c-butan...&s=1455&u=4179
I order it in quantities of 25 or 50 and pass them out like candy. In 5 years, I am on lighter #3.