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Fumas, Factory Seconds, or Factory Throw-outs?
Ksnyder211
Posts: 9 ✭
I'm a newbie and a cheap one, as is obvious from the thread title. Are Fumas and Factory Seconds/Throwouts the same, and if not, which is best?
Thank you.
Ken
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OK, you're still requested to answer those questions, however, I'll give you the short answers to your two questions.
No.
and,
Depends.
Fumas tend to be short filler cigars. Often the tobacco will be the same as the higher priced cigars from that company, just that instead of slow burning long filler, you get short filler which will generally burn faster, and a little hotter, and will not hold an ash the way a long filler cigar does. Often, these are a good choice for a poor man wanting a taste.
What someone like myself does, in evaluating whether these are worth it to me, is usually dissect one, and inspect to see whether the binder is really tobacco, or some kind of paper. If I find paper, I will never buy or smoke another one. Period.
Factory Seconds, and Throwouts, are often two different things.
Seconds are cigars that were intended to be premium cigars, but some flaw was found. Or, so the story goes. I bought a lot of Alec Bradley seconds a couple years ago, some of which fell into the category of flawed as in discoloration of the leaf, or poor seams etc., and some of which seemed to be the product of a learning curve by rollers who were given good tobacco, but were inexperienced. Mixed results on those learning curve cigars. Those with discoloration etc., however, are often as good as the premiums.
Every cigar that I've had that was labelled "Throwout" was crap. These weren't 2nds at all, but a contrived effort to make the buyer believe he was getting a slightly flawed premium cigar at a good price, when what he was actually buying was a short-filler paper wrapped machine made piece of junk. Is this always the case? I don't know, but I avoid them like a known case of herpes.
Hope this helps.
And, answer Peters question, the answer may seriously help us to guide you in the right direction. Really.
"If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain
AFAIK:
The term "Cuban Sandwich" refers to cigars made with leftover bits & pieces rolled between whole leaf binder and wrapper.
The term "homogenized" refers to pulped up baccy made into paper. Someone was convinced that homogenized would sound better than paper. But everyone calls it paper anyways.
To the torcedor, fumas are smokes made to tote home in your pocket and enjoy, rather than finished product made to look good and sell. As you can imagine, when Joe Tourist went to Cuba for the tour, & his new friend Juancito took Joe home for a smoke, why, between the camaraderie and the rum, Joe would come home raving how fumas were the best thing he smoked on the island. So a factory copped the name Fumas to brand a cheaper line.
I started out with Throwouts, and was happy with them. Sun Grown was my fave. Cuban sandwich made by JC Newman in Florida. No homogenized binder or wrappers. But within just a couple years, they went way downhill. Seems like instead of bits and pieces, they started using sweepings. Haven't smoked them in a long time. They may have started using paper since.
Gars are sorted into boxes according to color. Factory seconds is where the factory was left with a tub of gars which didn't match the color or proper appearance of the rest in the box. These leaves are an agricultural product, after all. Or they might have whitish spots on them that come from minerals in the soil. Many darker cigars are actually stained to make the color match. I don't know how they make up the stain. If you wet a stick, stain comes off, you can tell it was painted. Some gars just don't come out looking right ... the veins aren't aligned or the bunch under the wrapper was lumpy. You can get some damn fine smokes as factory seconds. One of the drawbacks, tho, is that you don't know exactly what line you're getting. They may be Patel Vintage or they may be Patel Edge. Maybe you like Edge but not Vintage. They're not going to tell you. All you know is, they're Patel seconds.
Don't let cigar snobs get into your head. Nothing wrong with enjoying cheap. Only a fool jumps into a new obsession without a budget. After all, you are literally burning money here. And the idea that more money = more better is pure idiocy. Especially if your wife and children depend on you. Listen, you may have to pay for what you get; but you don't always get what you pay for. There's a point somewhere around six or eight bucks a stick, in fact, where the blender starts rolling the dice trying to come up with something wildly exciting, rather than the same old enjoyable smoke. It's like -- I think a Henley collar is comfier than an everyday T-shirt, cause the collar is looser. So I'll look round BJs & spring for that. I don't care if it has a little hole where I dropped an ember, or a stain where I fooled round oiling a drive chain in the garage. But I sure ain't gonna wear any of that preposterous two grand crap you might see on a model strutting down the runway. That's a waste of money I'd rather blow on the old lady, or on the grandchildren, or on a new farkle for the newest murdersickle in the stable. Course, in Italy they spend like twice as much on clothes as we do here. That's their thing. Me, I'm good with comfy.
You also might fool around rolling your own. Real cheap fumas, and fun to do.
Enjoy.
That's the main thing.
"If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain
It occurs to me, however, that if you felt the same way about coffee you'd still be drinking Foal Turds or Max Swill House.
MOW badge received.
I have a friend who swears by these https://www.cigar.com/p/flor-de-oliva-cigars/1466934/ Your looking right around $2.00 a stick. Supposed to get pretty good with some age on them too.
If your enjoying yourself.....That's all that matters.
"If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain