From Rich Perelman at CigarCyclopedia:

Like a rocket breaking through the atmosphere on its way to outer space, prices for Padron 1926 Serie 40th Anniversary cigars have left the earth.

Famous Smoke Shop’s Cigar Auctioneer site ran a seven-day auction on a full box of 40 Padron 40ths in the specially-carved humidor that ended late Monday evening. They had sold one box previously for $2,055 (average of $51.38 per cigar, discounting the humidor) and another piecemeal, one cigar at a time. This auction broke all records.

A total of 62 bids were received over the auction period and two bidders dueled it out over the final couple of days. At the end, a buyer from Lubbock, Texas paid an astonishing $3,530 for the box and cigars, more than double the suggested retail price of $1,600.

Discounting the humidor – as most collectors do – the price per cigar was an out-of-this-world $88.25! Holy cow!

It’s the latest chapter in the overheated world of the Padron 40th Anniversary cigar market. The 6 1/2-inch by 54-ring torpedo was introduced in 2004 and has become the hottest cigar on the market since last fall.

Although the buyer’s name is unknown, an interesting question is whether the cigars will ever be smoked, or if the cigars will remain in-box and preserved for a future sale like wine. This kind of speculative buying is common among the cigar collectors of Hong Kong, who are primarily interested in Cuban cigars. But perhaps the wide notoriety of big-money bids for items like the Padron 40th Anniversary humidors and the Prometheus-produced $10,000 Fuente Fuente Opus X humidors may awake interest among collectors worldwide for the top Dominican, Honduran and Nicaraguan brands, right alongside those from Havana.