JR Cigar Catalogs!

[woodsroad]

Who remembers the JR Cigar catalog from when Lew Rothman still owned the company? I thought that I had saved some, but apparently not. I recently bought an 1980 copy of Lew’s Cigar Almanac, and it reminded me of his genius sense of humor and salesmanship. The man could sell dog rockets to the SPCA. I remember buying two boxes of cigars because he said “These suck, but they’re $7 a box”.

If you have any old copies of pre-2003 (or whenever he sold the company and stopped writing the catalog) that you are willing to part company with, would you please PM me?

Thanks!

 

[daveinlax]

He was a guest a few times on Kiss My Ash Radio Podcast years ago. They were a great listen. Loved the catalogs and going into his shops. Cut rate cigars next to pots, pans and aftershave.

 

[khiddy]

Oh man, those were the days. I loved Lew.

 

[anotherbob]

Who remembers the JR Cigar catalog from when Lew Rothman still owned the company? I thought that I had saved some, but apparently not. I recently bought an 1980 copy of Lew’s Cigar Almanac, and it reminded me of his genius sense of humor and salesmanship. The man could sell dog rockets to the SPCA. I remember buying two boxes of cigars because he said “These suck, but they’re $7 a box”.

If you have any old copies of pre-2003 (or whenever he sold the company and stopped writing the catalog) that you are willing to part company with, would you please PM me?

Thanks!

I still don't know why I got those. Never saved them. Kind of felt like they seemed a touch shady.

 

[woodsroad]

I still don't know why I got those. Never saved them. Kind of felt like they seemed a touch shady.

I got some great deals from JR back then. Loved his JR Ultimates and El Rey’s. I still have a couple of unopened boxes of those from when he ran the place.

 

[anotherbob]

I got some great deals from JR back then. Loved his JR Ultimates and El Rey’s. I still have a couple of unopened boxes of those from when he ran the place.

I certainly am a fan of cigars that are on sale. Feels like the right price.

 

[woodsroad]

I certainly am a fan of cigars that are on sale. Feels like the right price.

Those $7 boxes turned out to be pretty good little cigars. A bit smaller than an 8-5-8, rough EMS wrapper, in an actual wood box. Enjoyable! But I did get some duds from him, not that I wasn't warned. He would say "I have a thousand boxes of these dog rockets that I have to dump on someone, even I won't smoke them, but the price is right!" and poof!, they'd be sold.

 

[irishearl]

A couple of decades ago was a regular customer of the JR Alternatives. Pretty good cigars. Loved his catalogues and writing.

 

[woodsroad]

A couple of decades ago was a regular customer of the JR Alternatives. Pretty good cigars. Loved his catalogues and writing.

The Alternatives were good, for the most part, and there were dozens of them to choose from. Cheap enough that if you got some mediocre ones you didn’t feel bad passing them off to that friend that would smoke anything.

 

[AreBee]

Oh man! His stories were so funny! The one that sticks in my memory was about a killer scorpion in his Florida home which turned out to be a fish! I also remember him writing in JFK's accent and talking about "Cuber".

JR was my vendor of choice back in the '90s-'00s. I bought a couple Belinda ammo boxes and really enjoyed the JR Ultimates which were solid smokes.

I still buy from them on occasion but it doesn't feel the same. Sometimes it's hard to turn down a 35% code and free shipping and if you like anything made by Altadis, it really is the place to get them.

 

[woodsroad]

Didn’t Lew end up buying back the company and reselling it? The man is shrewd!

 

[agnosticpipe]

I loved those old catalogs! His stories about buying cigars from various makers and vendors were full of humor for sure.