I hope last year was good for year and with little luck this one will even be better. I recently picked up the December issue of The Cigar Aficionado. There was a huge article in it on cigar memorabilia collecting. Some things there were true and others were not. But that is normal; anything written to impress people usually has to include some exaggerations. That is the sort of things publications do, they embellish the truth or in this case “numbers” to make the story look even more incredible. But the article got me thinking: why don’t I write something valuable on the topic of cigar memorabilia collecting? If you are a cigar smoker you must enjoy at least a little something about cigar history or at least bits of it.

This story goes, that in 1860 at the age of 18 someone called Ignacio Haya arrived from Escalante, Spain to Havana, Cuba. Seven years later Ignacio Haya moved to New York City, where he established a cigar company with his friend Serafin Sanchez. Although their business was successful, around that exact time there was a very strong movement among factory workers towards unionization. So Ignacio and his friend Serafin decided to move to Tampa, Florida, then a hub of Spanish immigrants coming from Cuba. In 1885 Ignacio Haya bought 10 acres next to Ybor City and started construction of the building for his new factory. On April 16, 1886 Sanchez Y Haya rolled their first cigar at Factory No.1 in Ybor City, which is now part of Tampa, Florida. Haya has made significant contribution to cigar manufacturing in the United States. Following his success, many more factories sprang out in Tampa and some are still there making machine made cigars. There is even a street in Tampa in Seminole Heights named after him.

In 1887 in order to promote their brand Ignacio Haya and Serafin Sanchez commissioned than a hugely popular German printing company, Klingenberg to print an advertising poster for their brand. At that time Klingenberg was the most prestigious company to have your labels prints done by. Over the years the company produced thousands of cigar labels and several dozens of prints and is notorious for initially printing the original H. Upmann label. It is considered that a handful of Sanchez Y Haya posters are still in circulation and few of them are in Klingenberg archives in Dortmund, Germany. Because of its history, Sanchez Y Haya poster is considered the most sought after poster among cigar memorabilia collectors and in order not to give you a false impression I will not quote any dollar amounts. Lastly I will say that a proof, meaning an original test print, of that poster is located at TNTCIGARS headquarters in Phoenix, AZ on 10th Street and Camelback Rd and is a prize of cigar history. If you are ever in the neighborhood please stop by and will be happy to show you some other cool stuff in our collection.

Dimitri Rozenman of www.TNTCIGARS.COM