Next week, the Dominican cigar industry plays host to the 10th annual Procigar festival and as is tradition, the last night will include a gala dinner followed by an auction benefiting charities. Like in years past, Procigar members have donated speciality items which are auctioned, sometimes for over $50,000.

fanny-lora

The painting above is titled “Nothing like The Sun” by Fanny Lora. It’s part of Lora’s “Late que Late” collection.

It’s described in the auction guide:

Accomplice of the sun, the tobacco leaves are almost agglutinated in a school mode to dialogue in support with the exquisite levitation of the beautiful heart.

It is a piece of mixed technique with the intention of provoking an impression by making a specific cultural landscape fuse in the same language along with a such an universal and iconic shape as the Heart.

Starting bid is $800.

fuente-fuente-opus-x-20th-anniversary-blue-humidor

From Tabacalera A. Fuente y Cia. is a Prometheus humidor filled with a variety of special cigars and four boxes of the Fuente Fuente OpusX 20th Anniversary, one of each size.

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The humidor is Prometheus’ 150-count Platinum Series Blue Sycamore, a $1,750 value, filled with 80 “special and unique” cigars. The company says it will include: FFOX Lanceros, FFOX Scorpion, FFOX BBMF and FFOX King Power.

Starting bid is $2,000.


PDR Cigars is donating a special AFR-75 San Andrés Maduro Humidor. The humidor contains:

  • 25 AFR Catador
  • 25 AFR Sublime
  • 25 AFR Salome

The AFR Salome size has been produced exclusively for this humidor.

Starting bid is $2,000.

quesada-procigar-humidor-2017-1

Quesada Cigars is donating the Tambora Humidor, a one-off humidor designed just for this auction. Tambours are a percussion instrument used for the Dominican dance, merengue. Procigar actually features an annual merengue contest earlier on in the week.

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Inside the humidor is:

  • 50 Quesada Reserva Privada Barberpole
  • 25 Quesada España Lancero (2011)
  • 25 Fonseca Reserva Especial (2003)
  • 20 Quesada 35th Anniversary (2009)

The Reserva Privada Barberpole is not offered for sale.

Starting bid is $2,500.

la-aurora-procigar-2017-humidor

La Aurora is debuting a new cigar called ADN Dominicano. It uses andullo tobacco, a native tobacco to the Dominican Republic.

Generally, leaves are harvested, hang-dried in a barn and tightly placed on top of each other in large piles called pilones. Andullo tobacco is harvested and placed into long cylindrical pods known as yaguas. They are then stacked on top of one another and rotated while the tobacco processes.

Andullo is commonly found in pipe tobacco, but is generally a rarity for cigars. La Aurora has made at least two other cigars that use andullo for private label clients: the Project 805 for Ventura Cigar Co. and Total Flame Wild One.

The company has not announced specific details regarding the cigar or the humidor.

Starting bid is $2,500.

tabacalera-palma-procigar-2017-humidor

Tabacalera Palma has created a humidor that is also a painting. It’s based on the company’s Los Cocos farm and inside the painting a cabinet slides out revealing 75 La Galera cigars. There’s built-in lighting and humidity controls.

Starting bid is $3,000.


General Cigar Co. has created a desk humidor, inside will be 42 Partagas Ramon y Ramon Maxim Grande (6 x 52) and 21 Macanudo Mao. The size is listed as 6 x 52, which would be a non-production size.

The humidor is also a one-of-a-kind piece made from solid mahogany and lined with Spanish cedar.

Starting bid is $3,500.

tabacalera-de-garcia-procigar-2017-humidor

Tabacalera de Garcia, which is the Dominican factory for Altadis U.S.A., is giving the winning bidder a look into the company’s future.

It’s created the Montecristo Artisan Series Exclusive Humidor, which will contain 25 cigars of the first five Montecristo Artisan Series.

The Artisan Series are cigars created by members of the factory’s Grupo de Maestros, the supervisors who help run the largest cigar factory in the world. Artisan Series Batch 1 debuted last year in a single 6 x 54 size using an Ecuadorian Habano wrapper, Dominican binder and Dominican and Honduran filers.

Batch 1 was created by Nestor Rodriguez, tobacco operations manager at Tabacalera de Garcia; and Joel Alvarenga, operations manager at Flor de Copán Premium Cigar Factory.

The company has not announced details for the next four releases, but they are included in the humidor.

Starting bid is $4,000.

davidoff-dome-humidor

The first of two lots from Tabadom Holding, Inc.—Davidoff’s Dominican operations—is a Dome humidor filled with the Davidoff Royal Release: 10 Robustos and 10 Salomones.

davidoff-royal-release-salomones-box-3

The Dome Humidor is made from dark macassar wood and features Davidoff’s unique humidification system. Royal Release was launched last year, the cigars are some of the most expensive on the market, priced at $80 and $100 per cigar respectively.

Starting bid is $8,000.

la-flor-dominicana-procigar-2017-humidor

La Flor Dominicana has donated a custom Elie Bleu humidors. The humidor—which retails for $8,500—has been customized including a silloheute of La Flor founder Litto Gomez and his trademark hat. The company says that there are only five of these humidors being made.

Inside are three different vitolas:

Starting bid is $15,000.

davidoff-damajagua-humidor-2

Davidoff’s other entry is the first Davidoff Masterpiece Humidor Damajagua by Rose Saneuil. A total of 20 humidors are made using Saneuil’s technique of marquetry, combining different materials to create an image. In this case, Saneuil used 25 different materials to create an image honoring the Dominican region of Damajagua, an area in the northwest Dominican Republic where Davidoff has been growing tobacco since 2002.

davidoff-masterpiece-humidor-damajagua-edition

This humidor is special not just because it is the number 1 of 20, but also because it will contain 50 Davidoff Damajagua cigars, which are only offered in this humidor.

davidoff-damajagua

It’s a 6 x 52 toro that uses an Ecuadorian wrapper, a Dominican San Vicente mejorado binder and five visos as fillers: Condega and Estelí from Nicaragua and piloto, piloto mejorado and San Vicente mejorado—all from the Dominican Republic.

The company says that 30 percent of the tobacco used for the cigar came from Damajagua.

Starting bid is $25,000.


This is not a finalized list of items. Typically, Procigar includes other auction items—some small and some larger. In past years the group has auctioned off various articles of clothing from Procigar members, special cigars—including ones straight out of people’s pockets and in some cases, a mustache.

Last year, the auction raised $15,000 in donations to have Manuel “Manolo” Quesada Jr.’s mustache shaved off in front of the crowd. It was the first time Quesada Jr. had been without his mustache in 47 years.

At least one company has informed halfwheel that its item is not in the guide. De Los Reyes has created “a very large” item that was not photographed in time to be included in the auction guide.


Three charities will receive the proceeds of the auction.

Hospicio San Vincente de Paul is a non-profit dedicated to providing care for the elderly of Santiago. Proceeds will help to complete the Golden Age Residential Center, an area that will care for 26 full-time residents and 12 more daytime patients. The project is being created so that the organization can charge for care to help pay for its charitable costs.

Voluntariado Jesus con los Niños is a non-profit dedicated to helping children and their facilities. It includes a children’s oncology unit, children’s burn unit and a nutritional program that helps to offset the effects of chemotherapy treatment.

Finally the auction will benefit the Monumento a los Heroes de la RestauraciónMonument to the Heroes of the Restoration. The iconic monument was built in Santiago by Dominican dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo in 1944 for his own honor.

After he was overthrown the monument was renamed to honor the heroes of the Dominican Restoration War. It serves as a celebration of 100 years of Dominican Independence, which was achieved in 1844.

It plays a special role for Procigar. The festival’s annual white dinner—a party where attendees are asked to where white—is held each year at the monument.


Procigar 2017 begins Feb. 19 in Punta Cana. The festival moves to Santiago on Feb. 22 with the auction taking place on the 24th.

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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.