Legendary Siboney Box
A number of cigar factories were acquired at the turn of the 19th century and "El Siboney" was one of the 12 factories acquired between 1898 and 1902.
This brand had a very small production and one anecdote is interesting about it.
It was thought that, after the Revolution, Fidel Castro decided to eliminate all the cigar brands to found just one dedicated to exportations.
The world did not like this new brand named Siboney and after a consultation with Zino Davidoff Castro was convinced to reinstate all the popular brands as soon as possible.
This never happened and has just been a popular rumour.
This brand is indeed rare. It was a cigarette brand in the early days of the 20th century and was a small brand in pre revolution days.
This box is in my opinion just post revolution, maybe between 60-63 and are probably machine made and hand finished given the cellophane.
The brand was made pre revolution in the La Corona Factory as far as I can tell & the brand was resurrected in 1986 for the Austrian market,
only one size of cigar was made, 38 ring gauge and exactly the same dimensions as the Montecristo Especial 2 with production being stopped in 1996 or thereabouts.
If you have the Cigar Encyclopedia by Min Ron Nee and Adriano Martinez, there is more detail.
But this box throws a monkey wrench at one of the paragraphs that they have written, regards that no post revolution known boxes exist until 1986!!
Additional Details
The inner insert that came with this box proved that the box was genuine, apparently the Siboney was made in Corona sizes 1,2,3 & 7 and Torpedo 4, 5 & 6.
If any of you aficionados has another box of Siboneys we would like to hear from you!! Use the contact page of this website!!