General Cigar Company

General Cigar Company
Southern side of the building
Location: 223 NW 2nd St., Evansville, Indiana
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

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