Quote:
Originally Posted by Chingas
I believe if you use the search function here there is a thread already about this but if memory served me right, The short of it is back in the day , the band use to help keep the wrapper on.
Noadays, no other use than identifying the stick.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
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Not sure if I've ever heard that one before. Not outright saying it's wrong, but it's not really logical. Cigars were rolled for quite a long time before bands were added, all the cigars prior to the "invention" of the use of bands, held together without them just fine.
As for today, yes, that things related to it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by colinb913
Back in the day they were used to keep the oils off of white gloves the upperclassman used to wear.. Or so i have been lead to believe.
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Also illogical. If there was that much oil it would permiate the bands too, some of which were cloth. Plus, how oily is an "oily" wrapper really? It's not.
I have about ten different books on the history of tobacco and cigars and what's funny is that none of the authors seem to really agree on how bands came about. Some of the theories presented as facts by them include: it was used as a tax stamp, or to keep people's fingers clean from the chickory that some cigars were rolled in for color dying and flavoring, or it was by the order of a noble, or it was an enterprising merchant who wanted to distinguish his cigars from the rest, and so on. No clear consensus that I can recall. It got to be so silly that by about the 4th book, I would just only barely skim, or even just entirely skip that section.