Starting this year, Europeans will not only receive Tatuaje Monster Series dress boxes, but will also be getting unique ones of their own. Pete Johnson of Tatuaje made the announcement this weekend at the Inter-tabac trade show in Dortmund, Germany.

There will be slightly over 100 of these dress boxes made, which will feature the same design in a different color of this year’s Monster Series release, Tatuaje The Jekyll (7 x 49). Johnson told halfwheel he is limited by the amount of bands made, but he was toying with the idea of making 130, or possibly 133, to keep with the Monster Series 13 theme. The boxes will not go to all of Europe, as of now, Johnson expects it to only go to two distributors, including the Netherlands, where the idea came for the special boxes.

This will have no effect on the U.S. release of the Tatuaje Monster Series. A total of 700 dress boxes are made, 666 are numbered and sent to stores. The bulk of those go to 13 retailers, named the unlucky 13, while other retailers receive between one and three boxes. In addition to the 13-count dress boxes, there will also be a larger quantity of 10-count plain boxes released, last year it was 4,500 plain boxes. Johnson keeps the remaining boxes for friends, family, charitable and personal use.

Johnson introduced the series in 2008 with an annual release based around a monster character. In 2010, he introduced the plain boxes for those consumers who were interested in simply smoking cigars as opposed to collecting packaging.

In addition to adding European dress boxes, Johnson also said he has added “The” back into the name. Previously, he indicated he was removing the article because he did not like how it read with last year’s release, Tatuaje The JV13.

The names of the 13 retailers has not been announced yet, traditionally that info has arrived in late September with the cigars shipping in October.

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Charlie Minato

I am an editor and co-founder of halfwheel.com/Rueda Media, LLC. I previously co-founded and published TheCigarFeed, one of the two predecessors of halfwheel. I have written about the cigar industry for more than a decade, covering everything from product launches to regulation to M&A. In addition, I handle a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff here at halfwheel. I enjoy playing tennis, watching boxing, falling asleep to the Le Mans 24, wearing sweatshirts year-round and eating gyros. echte liebe.