The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1902-10-08

Some Refer to Size, Some to Shape
and Others TO Color-Few Tobacco
Users Know Them Apart, and They
Are Much SEsused.
Whenever the average untutored to-
bacco lover wishes to indicate to his
envious friends that he is in possession
Of cigar of the first quality, be usual
IL says that be has perfecto. By
perfecto he means the best cigar OBJ
tainablc, and as a rule be applies the
name to all products Of the Havana
factories But in truth, declares an
intelligent writer in the Kansas City
Journal, a good many cigars that
never saw Havana are genuine per-
fectos, and a good many made in the
most famous factories Of the Cuban
capital are not. The word, as mat
ter OF fact, does not refer to the quality
of cigar at all. 1t is simply term
used to describe the shape. a perfecto
may cost 81, and it may cost 214 cents.
There are half a dozen cigar terms
thus nisused by the average smoker,
and there are several times as many
words of the same sort whose mean
ing be is utterly unable to fathom.
What native. corn fed smoker, for in
stance, knows the difference between
q panetela and Reina Victoria? And
how many know whether there is
real difference between maduro and
an oscuro? Yet all Of these terms are
the common property Of cigar makers
all over the world. Like many cigar
brand names, they are Of Spanish ori-
gin, but the wanderings Of Havana
tobacco and Cuban cigars have taken
them into all countries and all Ian
guages. >
The great majority Of cigars are put
up fifty in a box, with thirteen on the
top row, twelve on the row next to the
TOD, thirteen on the next and twelve
on the bottom row. When londres
cigar is packed 100 in a box i'll two
bundles tied with a ribbon, it becomes
a Reina Victoria, which is Spanish for
Queen Victoria. Early in the late
queens reign a Cuban manufacturer
invented this method Of packing and
called the resultant bundle after Great
Britain's sovereign. The name has re-
NAMED ever since.
The word perfecto Is term indicat-
ing a certain shape in cigars. A per-
fecto is q smoke having what is gen.
orally called the "cigar shape"-that
is to say, it is swelled near the end
which is lighted and tapers gradually
down 70 the point, or head. The end
Of a cigar which a smoker puts in his
mouth is known among cigar makers
as the head. The other end, that
which Is lighted, is called the tuck.
When. as often happens in perfecto,
the tuck is very small, it is called a
needle tuck or feather tuck. All others
follow these lines more or less closely.
A thin, straight cigar. with little
more thickness in the middle than at
the tuck, is called panetela. The
average panetela is slightly longer
than q perfecto, though the matter OF
size has nothing to do with the shape.
Panetelas are esteemed because they
burn more regularly and are usually
better because more easily made. The
virtue of the perfecto is that its small
er tuck lights more readily. and its
more artistic curves give it greater
beauty.
A londres is q sort Of cross between
the perfecto and the panetela. 1t is
q perfecto from the head to the thick
est part, and from there on to the tuck
it is betwixt and between. Usually
the slope from the thickest part to the
tuck has a gradual curve. The tuck
as rule is as large as that Of pane
tela.
A 2artegas is cigar shaped much
like a londres, except that the slope
from the thickest part to the head is
usually not so rounded. 1t Is a shape
not now as fashionable as 1t used to
be. and even when cigars are genuine