Preview: Procigar 2020 Auction Items (Update)

Valentine’s Day is later this week which means Procigar 2020 begins next week. The Dominican Republic’s annual cigar festival always begins the week after Valentine’s Day, starting first in La Romana on the eastern tip of the island before moving inland to Santiago, home to most of the country’s cigar factories.

Next Friday, the festival will come to close with its annual gala night, capped off by a charity auction. Each of Procigar member companies, all cigar factories, donate an item—oftentimes a humidor—to be auctioned off to benefit two local charities: Hospicio San Vincente de Paul and Voluntariado Jesus con los Niños.

E.P. Carrillo 10 Year Anniversary

Tabacalera La Alianza S.A.’s entry for 2020 is the E.P. Carrillo 10 Year Anniversary, a 2019 release that celebrated the 10th anniversary of the company.

The design took #7 on our 2019 Packaging Award List and includes 10 of each of the following special cigars:

• Perez-Carrillo Encore 10th Anniversary (6 1/2 x 56) — 1,000 Boxes of 10 Cigars (10,000 Total Cigars) — $20 (Box of 20, $400)
• Perez-Carrillo La Historia 10th Anniversary (6 1/2 x 56) — 1,000 Boxes of 10 Cigars (10,000 Total Cigars) — $20 (Box of 20, $400)

Starting Bid: $1,200

Heart in Flower by Fanny Lora

Fanny Lora, an artist whose works are normally part of the annual Procigar auction, has another tobacco and heart-themed piece. Heart in Flower is made of acrylic and MDF and has a diameter of 30 inches.

Starting Bid: $1,200

Quesada Golf Humidor

Pragmy Marichal, a Dominican artist who frequently collaborates with Quesada, has designed a golf-themed humidor that includes 120 cigars.

• 40 Quesada 1974 Robusto
• 20 Vega Magna Toro
• 60  Quesada 40th Anniversary Salomon Press

Starting Bid: $2,000

General Cigar Dominicana Wooden Mold Humidor

As the name implies, the General Cigar Dominicana humidor uses cigar molds to decorate the outside of the humidor. As is often the case for General’s Procigar humidors, the humidor comes with Macanudos, including the new Macanudo Green. That cigar uses a Brazilian Arapiraca wrapper, though the company hasn’t formally announced the cigar.

In addition, the humidor also includes 20 Macanudo Inspirado Black and 20 Macanudo Café cigars.

Starting Bid: $2,000

De Los Reyes Antología de la Pasión

The SAGA brand has been releasing cigars in boxes designed to look like books as part of its SAGA Short Tales series and its 2020 Procigar humidor carries on that story. It’s a mahogany humidor carved by René León that is designed to look like a series of books and comes with 250 cigars.

Starting Bid: $3,500

La Aurora 115th Anniversary Limited Edition Humidor

It’s technically La Aurora’s 117th anniversary, but the Dominican’s oldest factory is offering a humidor that is centered around the La Aurora 115th Anniversary Limited Edition. A special humidor has been created out of cedar, gold-plated ironwork and a black lacquered finish.

Inside the humidor is 148 cigars, including an exclusive salomones size that is only offered as part of the humidor:

• 52 La Aurora 115th Anniversary Limited Edition Gran Toros
• 56 La Aurora 115th Anniversary Limited Edition Belicosos
• 40 La Aurora 115th Anniversary Limited Edition Salomones

Starting Bid: $3,500

Montecristo Cincuenta Humidor by Elie Bleu

Last year, Tabacalera de García celebrated its 50th anniversary with the Montecristo Cincuenta, a special release offered in two sizes. It was offered in two sizes: a Toro (6 x 50) and No. 2 (6 x 52).

The Toro size was sold in boxes of 10, while the No. 2 was sold only in Elie Bleu humidors. What’s interesting about the auction item is that it’s the same humidor that the No. 2s were sold in, but the cigar is listed as a Cincuenta Toro and appears to be something completely different.

Whatever the case, the cigars were rolled by one woman, Lucrecia Valdez.

Starting Bid: $5,000

Davidoff Masterpiece Year of the Rat Humidor

You can read more about this item here.

It’s a French-made humidor that contains 88 Davidoff Limited Edition 2020 Year of the Rat cigars, a Year of the Rat torch lighter and a double blade cutter.

Starting Bid: $8,000

La Galera Vitrola Humidor

Tabacalera Palma’s humidor for 2020 celebrates music. It looks like a record console because it is. The unit has a record player at the top, three drawers, space for 200 cigars, a mini-bar and a place to hold records. The humidor comes with 100 cigars—split between Aging Room, La Galera and La Instructora—as well as four records the factory says represent important times in music.

• “A Night at the Opera” — Queen
• “Abbey Road” — The Beatles
• “Beggars Banquet” — The Rolling Stones
• “Blonde on Blonde” — Bob Dylan

Starting Bid: $4,000

LFD x Elie Bleu

Once again, La Flor Dominicana offers up a special Elie Bleu humidor. What’s unique about this release isn’t the humidor itself—valued at $8,300—but rather the 500 cigars inside. La Flor Dominicana says the cigars inside are Dominican puros, made entirely of tobaccos from the company’s own farms and using an experimental wrapper that the company has “been perfecting over the last few years.”

Starting Bid: $15,000

Fuente Fuente OpusX 2020

Arturo Fuente will begin selling the new OpusX 2020 later this year, only in the United Arab Emirates, though one person will have the opportunity to buy three boxes in the Dominican Republic.

The company is offering one 20-count box of each of the three sizes.

• Fuente Fuente OpusX 2020 Arena d’Amor (5 x 52)
• Fuente Fuente OpusX 2020 Sol d’Amor (6 1/8 x 55)
• Fuente Fuente OpusX 2020 Viento d’Amor (6 x 58)

Starting Bid: $2,500

The Monument by Fabian Barrantes

International Packaging Design has created the boxes for Thursday’s night’s annual white party, hosted at the Monumento a los Héroes de la Restauración. Fabian Barrantes, a designer in the cigar industry, painted the design on a 30 x 48 canvas.

The painting shows the monument, but it uses metallic paints, meaning the painting changes colors depending on how the light hits the canvas.

Starting Bid: $800

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.

Update (Feb. 12, 2020) — Added one more item. This post was originally published on Feb. 11, 2020.

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.