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Lot 38
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Winston Churchill's Cuban cigar and attractive custom case from 1954!
Winston Churchill's Cuban cigar and attractive custom case from 1954!
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Description:

Churchill Winston 1874 - 1965 Winston Churchill's Cuban cigar and attractive custom case from 1954, gifted to a member of Parliament by Churchill at a party. From Sothebys London, delayed in embargo for 17 years!

An incredible "La Aroma De Cuba" Winston Churchill cigar offered to Roderic Bowen, QC, MP (Liberal Parliamentary Deputy-Speaker), during a luncheon party at 10 Downing Street on December 21, 1954. The cigar remains tightly wrapped in original cellophane wrapping and is in untouched condition, 6.5" in length. Accompanied by provenance of a signed letter from Roderic Bowen MP, dated 14 September 1998 confirming the cigar was "given to him personally by Sir Winston Churchill at a private luncheon-party at 10 Downing Street, at which I was his guest on 21st December 1954" A fascinating set of events led this cigar to be sold at auction by Sotheby's in 1999, with the proceeds of the sale requested by Bowen to be donated to "Cancer Research Wales". However, upon auctioning the cigar, Sotheby's determined after the sale that they were not allowed to ship any Cuban products to the United States due to an embargo placed on Cuba. As such, Sothebys had to inventory the cigars for 17 years until the embargo was recently lifted and they were allowed to ship the cigars. Accompanied by Churchill's fancy original slightly rubbed Royale blue cigar case stamped with gilt titles of "T.B. Carlin Ltd / 13 Park Place, St. James's / London S.W.I.". La Aroma de Cuba is an original Cuban brand from the late 1800s, once a favorite of Winston Churchill. Churchill enjoyed two brands that were to be his lifelong companion and an omnipresent part of his legacy. While one was the lesser known La Aroma, the other was already popular Romeo y Julieta.


From an important by-gone era, Churchill epitomizes a man who elevated a nation in their darkest days with his rich rhetoric and incredible fortitude. Churchill believed, unsurprisingly, in the romantic power of speeches. He wrote that if a man's oratory was powerful enough he would become an "independent force". He said a speech should be brought to a climax through a "rapid succession of waves of sound and vivid pictures". This technique is obvious in several of Churchill's war speeches. Churchill's stirring oratory is perhaps his greatest legacy. His wartime speeches famously gave the British lion its roar during the darkest days of the Second World War, summoning the perseverance of a nation that was being torn apart as they also were watching their allies fall. All the while that Churchill kept resistance to Nazi dominance alive, his additionally employed creative measures included establishing the foundation for an alliance with the United States and the Soviet Union. These measures allowed him to secure vital U.S. aid through the Lend Lease Act, which allowed Britain to order war goods from the United States on credit.

But for all his leadership, he was also well known for his famed aristocratic idiosyncrasies, from his love of fine food, fine cigars, fine liquor and fine attire. Winston Churchill was born into a rich aristocratic and politically powerful family. He had been given an opportunity upon his 21st anniversary to visit Cuba to journalistically write about the Cuban guerrillas. It was on this trip that Churchill developed his quick addiction to Havana cigars. Once he has tasted them on the "...large, rich, beautiful island...", he could no longer quit this habit. Cigars have always been his passion; some sources say he smoked from 6 to 8 cigars a day and others claim he was able to smoke up to 10 cigars a day, although it was reported he never smoked them more than half way down. And it was not a tiny cigarillo advised for beginners, but one of the largest sticks from the Cuban cigar's line instead. He preferred the Romeo y Julieta brand the most, that's why the topmost vitola of the brand has been called Churchill in his honour. The cigar is 7 inches long with a 47 ring gauge and is still considered as one of the most popular formats among aficionados.

Cigar smoking became one of the strongest pastimes of Churchill's entire life. He used to keep hundreds of Cuban cigars (he never smoked cigars coming from other countries) in a room near his study in the Chartwell residence. There are people who today, nearly 75 years post WWII, who may not be aware of who this great personality was, the services he performed for his homeland and the rest of the universe, his fervent speeches he held around the world and reforms he implemented while being Great Britain's prime-minister. But ask someone who was the most passionate cigar smoker from Great Britain "always carrying Cuba on his lips", and you'll immediately hear the right answer "It's Churchill, dude - we all owe him the Churchill shape". This cigar of the brand La Aroma de Cuba is an original Cuban brand from the late 1800s, and was once a favorite of Winston Churchill. Churchill collected two brands that were to be his lifelong companion and an omnipresent part of his legacy. While one was the lesser known La Aroma, the other was already popular Romeo y Julieta.

This fantastic piece of Churchillian history comes direct from 10 Downing street, during a luncheon party in 1954. While one is holding it - and imagining just what this nicely aged cigar would be like lit up... one can reflect on some of Churchill's famous quotes and speeches of which only a small portion are shown below:

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

If you're going through hell, keep going.

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

And of course some of the famous excerpts from his motivational speeches which enabled Britain to pull together during WWII:

"We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender."

'What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over: the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say: This was their finest hour .

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