Last week, Nixmom and I were in Asheville, NC for a "seminar" and she talked me into going "antiquing" with her on Saturday. (When did "anigue" become a verb?) We went to a huge place called the Antique Tobacco Barn. I figured that it might be semi-interesting to see a place with that name but I had no intenetion of buying anything and was just hoping that my wife wouldn't see anyhting she had to have. After a while, I started looking for old cigar boxes and found one made in 1953 (the same year I was made) and bought it for $6. I bought another box made in 1958 for about $4. Then, as we were leaving, I spotted, out of the corner of my eye, the unmistakable shape of a humidor. It is well constructed out of dark red wood but is badly scratched. It has a brass nameplate on the lid reading "B.D.O April 14, 1943". I opened it expecting to find the traditional cedar lining but this humidor is lined with white marble. It has a humidification device of a type I have never seen, basically a corrugated cardbord strip the length of the humidor encased in a metal casing held in place by two levers. Can't wait to see how that system, along with the marble siding, works. Anyway, Nixmom says she can clean the brass plate and fix up the scratches so that it looks presentable. I don't really need another humidor but this one will certainly be the most interesting.
"Cuban seed tobaccos grown in Nicaragua and Cuba. The wrapper would be from Cuba. The binder leaves would be from Nicaragua. For the ligero tobacco in the filler, he would use two types, one from Esteli and the other from Jalapa in Nicaragua. The other filler components, seco and viso, would come from Cuba, the former from Villa Clara, the latter from Pinar del Rio. That Cigar, he says with pride, would score 100 points." -Don Pepin Garcia
Be careful. "Antiquing" became a verb right about when somebody figured that they could sell old stuff for an enormous profit to somebody's wife!
Where is the Antique Tobacco Barn in Asheville? My wife will want to know.
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"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins." (H.L. Mencken)
