Dukes and Others, Box Pressed or Not ?

[luis]

Hi

Received a box of Dukes today and the cigars are wildly box pressed ?!? Others I have have a nice round shape which seems to be the case with most( all?) of my ELs. The wrappers are not nice either , very patchy but I've seen this on many ELs. The cigars also appear underfilled. So a couple of questions :

Is that normal to encounter box pressed Dukes ? Why is it happening as both boxes are the same and so are the suposed to be the cigars . Have the cigars swollen or does it come from approximative workmanship ? With which cigars have you encountered the same issue, some box pressed and some not in the same packaging ?

Finally what do you think of box pressed cigars, I'm not sure it has a great influence on smoking but generally prefer from far the round shape (although with the underfilled look and feeling of those Dukes I doubt they will be very good).

Thanks for your input !
Luis

[Smallclub]

Some ELs were very box pressed: Partagas D3, Monte robusto, RyJ robusto…
But box pressed Dukes? That's surprising… to begin with, cigars in boxes of 10 are rarely –or barely– box pressed…

[luis]

I was very surprised as well... And disappointed ! La VPC n'est pas la panacee as we say... Will post a couple of pics later is you think it's very dodgy (vendor has a decent name and the packaging looks very fine IMO)

[luis]

BTW, it's cool to be able to log back on the ICC !

[Cubatobaco]

Luis, how did your package arrive? Was the box vacuum sealed, etc.? I was just thinking maybe the lid was pressed down on the cigars causing a box-pressed appearance. Frank is right. They are usually pretty well-rounded in 10cts. Let's hope they smoke well.

[luis]

Yes , they were vacuum sealed, and the othex box of Dukes I own indeed contains nice rounded cigars, with even wrappers . Can the cigars swell from too much humidity than become box pressed during shipping ? I'll smoke one in a few days to check, but will put hold ordering more Dukes for a while (was thinking to order a new box untill I opened this one ).

[Smallclub]

Any pics?

[jkim05]

It could be the vacuum sealing as Ray mentioned. If left even just a bit too long in the vacuum sealer they could end up quite box pressed.

[luis]

Some pics in the link below, it's not very clear especially that I took them with an iphone and little light, but there's a pic from another box of Dukes which looks more "right" . Thanks for the tips on the vacuum sealing issue, great packaging, poor looking cigars : exactly the contrary of some SdC1 I received a couple of weeks ago, I prefer the SdC's way...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/4733047...7623430368293/

[luis]

So dyou commonly receive vacuum packed boxes in such a condition? I wanted to order more Dukes but now I hesitate...

[slayer]

I thought they look ok from the pictures... They don't look as round as, say, Sublimes, but they're certainly not box pressed, a la Padrons..

[maverickdrinker]

They don't look that bad. I agree that it might have been due to the vaccum sealer.

[BigRon]

ive seen them worse than that.. it happens.. i usually pull one cigar out of the box, so they have space to acclimate and return to form.. and they usually do.. Only way i can see them staying in the specific square shape is if they are over-sealed and stored for extended amounts of time..

Hope this helps

[luis]

Thanks for your replies , just removed one stick from the box, see if they get back to a more pleasant shape, although I wonder if so much unplanned for transformation is good for the cigars. They definetely don't look as squarish as properly box pressed cigars, but far less round than the other Dukes I show in one of the pics. Main point is they smoke good, hope they will !