A game, some facts and a bunch of quotes walk into a Medium post…
Our vintage expert Antony has an infectious love of vintage stuff. He’s forever asking us to guess what some things are. Sometimes it’s easy — other times it’s really not. Sometimes even he doesn’t know. We catch him out sometimes, but not very often.
So now it’s your turn! Watch the video, or read the transcript below, then we’ll tell you if you were right.
We’ll also give you some fascinating facts relating to the item later in this post.
If you stick around to the very end we’ll be sharing the lucky winners of our Facebook and Twitter competitions!
Video Transcript
Here are a few things that we like to play games with on an afternoon at Vintage Cash Cow. So we’re going to show you a few items and maybe you’d like to give us a guess at what some of them are.
Here’s one from probably the 1940's maybe even as late as the 50's.
This is made of gold plate here, so it’s gold plated through.
This here has got a spring loaded action on the top here. I don’t know if you can see that but that’s where it is.
4 holes in the side all of different shapes. Two round, a bigger one and a diamond shaped one in the bottom. And it’s also got a small pointed cutter on the back here. Nice little item. Do you know what it is?
Did you guess what it was? Read on to see if you were right!
We noticed Antony’s little trick in this video. Pointing out that this contraption has differently sized holes in it makes it more difficult to guess what it is! He didn’t have us fooled though. We know a cigar cutter when we see one ;)
Premium cigars have what’s called a ‘closed head’. That means the cigar is all wrapped up in a tobacco leaf. In order to smoke this type of cigar, you need to cut the closed head off. That’s where cigar cutters come in.
What we didn’t know is that cigar cutting is virtually an art. We did a bit of digging to bring you 3 cigar cutting facts that you probably didn’t know.
We’ll also introduce you to some of the most famous cigar smokers in history. If all this makes you want to know more, stick around, we’ve included links to some of the best cigar sites around at the end of this post.
Here are 3 things we bet you don’t know about cigar cutters
One: How you cut the cigar changes the way it tastes and smokes. A small punched hole makes it difficult to smoke.
Cutting off the end entirely makes it taste milder and smoke easier. Seems like common sense, but if you opt for a v cut or a ‘cat’s eye’ it changes the intensity of the smoke and therefore the flavour.
Two: Some of the most famous cigar smokers in the world don’t use cigar cutters. While most cigar lovers agree that the cleaner the cut the better the smoke, some people just can’t be bothered with all the rigmarole.
Other popular methods of cigar cutting include — poking a hole in the end with a pocket knife, biting the end off with the teeth, using scissors and cutting the end of with a sharp knife.
Three: The most expensive cigar cutter in the world is part of a cigar chest, also known as a humidor. The chest is packed with electronics allowing you to store cigars at a specific temperature and control the humidity they are exposed to.
The chest comes with a digital laser cutter that promises the perfect cigar cut every time. At just over $1m you’d want the perfect cut!
The 4 most famous cigar smokers in history
There’s something distinguished about a cigar smoker. It doesn’t seem to have the same negative connotations as cigarette smoking. We recon these are the 4 most famous cigar smokers in history…
“Smoking cigars is like falling in love. First, you are attracted by its shape; you stay for its flavour, and you must always remember never, never to let the flame go out!”
“A cigar maker’s organisation once said that I was the most famous cigar smoker in the world. I don’t know if that’s true, but once when visiting Havana, I went to a cigar factory. There were four hundred people there rolling cigars, and when they saw me, they all stood up and applauded.”
“Cigars served me for precisely fifty years as a protection and weapon in the combat of life… I owe to the cigar a great intensification of my capacity to work and a facilitation of my self-control.”
“The most futile and disastrous day seems well spent when it is reviewed through the blue, fragrant smoke of a Havana Cigar.”
Want more on the fascinating world of cigars? Here are some sites we love:
Did you win our Facebook and Twitter competition to guess what the item was? find out here….
We’ll be in touch very soon to arrange your prize :)
And for more fascinating facts about weird vintage stuff/ unidentified objects, sign up for our upcoming blog:
