Giant cigar sells for $185,000 in Florida

Some people are simply not financially struggling. An anonymous buyer has bought a giant cigar for $185,000 from a Florida cigar dealer, according to a Jan. 28 UPI report. The mammoth stogie stretches 19 feet long and over 3 feet thick and would be large enough to start a beach bonfire that lasts several days.

Is bigger always better? The cigar is equivalent to 25,000 average-sized cigars and looks more like a thick, wooden telephone pole than a bundle of dried tobacco. It also has a unique (Freudian) name: the "Gran Habano #5 El Gigante" cigar.

At a purchase price of $185,000 the buyer chose several lifetimes worth of smoking as opposed to buying a new house or purchasing a Lamborghini. "We pride ourselves on finding the hard-to-find cigars," said the dealer. "This shows we are able to fill all our orders."

However, it seems that the "El Gigante" - which consists of 1,600 pounds of tobacco - won't even go up in smoke. Not that there's any way to light this stogie except by way of a Vietnam-era flame thrower or engine exhaust from an F-16 fighter jet.

Juan Panesso, who runs CigarsDirect.com, said the buyer intends to add the giant cigar to his private collection. Presumably, the buyer has a warehouse or storeroom large enough to accommodate "El Gigante".

The buyer successfully negotiated $50,000 off the six-figure purchase price. The product was shipped out of the United States to an unidentified country. According to Panesso, it comes with its own 900-pound wooden carrying case, an enclosure that looks like cargo storage.

Given that recreational use of marijuana is now legal in Colorado and Washington, perhaps there is a business opportunity for dealers to sell super-sized blunts that can give an entire town munchies for a whole week.

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Marv Dumon covers news on a dozen blog sites. He has written for Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Fortune 500 clients. Marv worked in process optimization at Honeywell and Freescale, and holds BA, BBA and MPA degrees from the University of Texas at Austin. | marvin.dumon@gmail.com

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