School me on "Vintage" and Dated Cigars

[kaisersozei]

Unlike wine, a lot of it is just marketing--the Rocky Patel "vintage" series is a good example. The tobacco used in those sticks are 5, 7 or 10 years old, not really related to the date on the band.

[T.G]

Originally Posted by kaisersozei

Unlike wine, a lot of it is just marketing--the Rocky Patel "vintage" series is a good example. The tobacco used in those sticks are 5, 7 or 10 years old, not really related to the date on the band.

There are a few exceptions though. For example, IIRC, the Macanudo Vintage are actually (allegedly) from the year on the band.

It really depends on the cigar.

[HK3-]

Are Nic 5000's from the future?

All kidding aside, I'm going to go with mostly marketing as mentioned above.

[ninjavanish]

Actually most manufacturers will apply a date code to their boxes in some way or another. This aides the company itself in a lot of ways... like for instance... say they had a quality issue with a particular cigar... knowing the date codes gives them the ability to research the issue and hopefully isolate the batch of tobacco from that particular date that was used in making those cigars. It may end up that it wasn't the tobacco but perhaps the roll... or it could be any number of reasons but knowing when those cigars were manufactured is imperative to being able to know if all are bad... or if it's just that batch.

However... the date code is often a specialized "code" for lack of a better term... for instance general cigars have a unique code that you have to know how to decipher it to be able to read it. Otherwise it just looks like random letters and numbers.

[688sonarmen]

Originally Posted by ninjavanish

Actually most manufacturers will apply a date code to their boxes in some way or another. This aides the company itself in a lot of ways... like for instance... say they had a quality issue with a particular cigar... knowing the date codes gives them the ability to research the issue and hopefully isolate the batch of tobacco from that particular date that was used in making those cigars. It may end up that it wasn't the tobacco but perhaps the roll... or it could be any number of reasons but knowing when those cigars were manufactured is imperative to being able to know if all are bad... or if it's just that batch.

However... the date code is often a specialized "code" for lack of a better term... for instance general cigars have a unique code that you have to know how to decipher it to be able to read it. Otherwise it just looks like random letters and numbers.

Do you know how to read it? I've always wondered what the Rj or other letters stood for on my boxes.