General Cigar Company

General Cigar Company
General Cigar Company
Southern side of the building
General Cigar Company is located in Indiana
Location: 223 NW 2nd St., Evansville, Indiana
Coordinates: 37°57′51″N 87°34′30″W / 37.96417°N 87.575°W / 37.96417; -87.575Coordinates: 37°57′51″N 87°34′30″W / 37.96417°N 87.575°W / 37.96417; -87.575
Area: Less than 1 acre (0.40 ha)
Built: 1902
Built by: Harry Boyle and Company; Alfred E. Neucks
Governing body: Private
NRHP Reference#: 00000212[1]
Added to NRHP: March 15, 2000

General Cigar Company is one of the largest manufacturers of cigars in the world. It has been owned by Swedish Match since 2005.

Contents

Company history

In 1961 General Cigar was purchased by a group of investors headed by Edgar M. Cullman, a fourth generation American in the tobacco industry.[2] Approximately $25 million was paid in the acquisition of General, which was profitably selling about $30 million worth of cigars annually at that time.[2]

Later in the 1960s, Culbro and General Cigar acquired Gradiaz Anis, maker of Gold Label cigars and the Temple Hall factory that owned the Macanudo brand name, ushering in a turn towards hand-rolled premium cigars.[2] Macanudo, a small label made in limited quantities for the market in the United Kingdom, was seen as the principal vehicle for growth in the premium cigar category and a careful effort was made to reblend the product using select binder and filler from the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Mexico and Connecticut-grown wrappers.[2] Mass advertising was conducted in support of the brand, which by the early 1990s had grown into the best selling premium cigar label in the United States.[2]

In 1978 General registered a trademark on the brand name "Cohiba" for the United States, thereby obtaining the right to use that name of that premium Cuban cigar in the American market. Protracted legal wrangling followed which was finally resolved on June 19, 2006, when the U. S. Supreme Court denied the petition of the Cuban tobacco marketing agency, Cubatabaco. As a result, the February 2005 decision of the U. S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals (Docket #04-2527), which confirmed General Cigar Company’s exclusive ownership of the Cohiba trademark in the United States, is final and is law of the case.[3] General's Cohiba cigars now bear a disclaimer on boxes that they are not affiliated in any way with the Cuban brand.

From 1978 General Cigar has also produced the Partagas and Bolivar cigar brands for the American market in competition with Cuban brands of the same name. Initial production of Partagas was conducted in Jamaica, but the following year production moved to a modern 70,000-square-foot (6,500 m2) factory in Santiago, Dominican Republic.[4]

A similar trade dress to the Cuban product has been used by General Cigar for its competing version of the Partagás brand, employing a red-and-gold band scheme, save with the word "Habana" replaced by the date "1845" on the packaging.[4]

In 1997, General Cigar acquired Villazon, a company marketing non-Cuban versions of the leading cigar brands Punch and Hoyo de Monterrey.[5]

General Cigar's brands

  • Ramone Allones (non-Cuban production in competition with the Cuban brand)
  • Bolivar (non-Cuban production in competition with the Cuban brand)
  • Robert Burns
  • Cifuentes (US rights only)
  • Cohiba (non-Cuban production in competition with the Cuban brand)
  • Excaliber
  • Garcia y Vega
  • Gold Label
  • La Gloria Cubana
  • Hoyo de Monterrey (non-Cuban production in competition with the Cuban brand)
  • Macanudo
  • Partagas (non-Cuban production in competition with the Cuban brand)
  • William Penn
  • Punch (non-Cuban production in competition with the Cuban brand)
  • El Rico Habano
  • Temple Hall
  • Van Dyck
  • White Owl

Footnotes

  1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2010-07-09. http://nrhp.focus.nps.gov/natreg/docs/All_Data.html. 
  2. ^ a b c d e Marvin R. Shanken, "Interview: Edgar Cullman, Sr.," Cigar Aficionado, vol. 3, no. 1 (Autumn 1994), pp. 55-71.
  3. ^ Empresa Cubana del Tabaco v. Culbro Corp., 399 F.3d 462 (2d Cir. 2005).
  4. ^ a b James Suckling, "The Partagas Family: Cigar Smokers from Around the World Gathered in Havana and Orlando This Summer to Celebrate the 150th Anniversary of Partagas Cigars," Cigar Aficionado, vol. 4, no. 2 (Winter 1995/96), pp. 134-143.
  5. ^ "General Cigar Co.," Neptune Cigars, neptunecigar.com/ Retrieved October 24, 2010.

External links


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем сделать НИР

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Cigar — For other uses, see Cigar (disambiguation). From the Spanish cigarro cigar , which was perhaps derived from the Spanish cigarra cicada (OED) …   Wikipedia

  • Cohiba (cigar brand) — Cohiba is a brand for two kinds of premium cigar, one produced in Cuba for Habanos S.A., the Cuban state owned tobacco company, and the other produced in the Dominican Republic for US based General Cigar Company. The name cohíba derives from the… …   Wikipedia

  • List of cigar brands — This is an alphabetical list of cigar brands. Included is information about the company owning the brand name as well as a column allowing easy viewing of the source of that information. If a brand name begins with the English word The or its… …   Wikipedia

  • Partagás (cigar brand) — A box of Cuban made Partagás Shorts. Partagás is among the oldest extant brands of cigars, established in Havana in 1845. The name is used today by two independent and competing entities, one produced on the island of Cuba for Habanos SA, the… …   Wikipedia

  • Partagas (cigar brand) — Partagás is the name of two brands of premium cigar, one produced on the island of Cuba for Habanos SA, the Cuban state owned tobacco company, and the other produced in the Dominican Republic from Dominican, Mexican, and Cameroon tobacco for… …   Wikipedia

  • Bolívar (cigar brand) — Bolívar is the name of two brands of premium cigar, one produced on the island of Cuba for Habanos SA, the Cuban state owned tobacco company, and the other produced in the Dominican Republic from Dominican and Nicaraguan tobacco for General Cigar …   Wikipedia

  • Macanudo (cigar brand) — Macanudo is the name of a cigar brand that is produced in the Dominican Republic. History Macanudo was originally the name of a frontmark produced in Jamaica by the makers of the Cuban brand of Punch. In 1971, General Cigar Company introduced… …   Wikipedia

  • General Alcazar — is a character in The Adventures of Tintin series of classic comic books drawn and written by Hergé. A general in the army of San Theodoros, Alcazar is involved in a never ending struggle for power with his arch rival General Tapioca, both men… …   Wikipedia

  • Cigar Dave — David Zeplowitz (nicknamed Cigar Dave and The General), is the creator and host of Smoke This! a nationally syndicated radio program devoted entirely to cigar smoking and its accompanying lifestyle. Contents 1 Biography 2 Smoke This! 2.1 History …   Wikipedia

  • Cigar store Indian — For the Seinfeld episode, see The Cigar Store Indian The cigar store Indian or wooden Indian is an advertisement figure, in the likeness of an American Indian, made to represent tobacconists, much like: barber poles advertise barber shops; Show… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”