Saturday, April 01, 2006

SMOKE! SMOKE! SMOKE!

President Clinton's cigars - which were Philippine made apparently - probably have more pop culture recall when it comes to presidential tobacco. But for those of you out there, like me, have a fetish for all things Marcosiana, these cigars (pictured above and below) definitely possess some historical value. I just received a letter in my emailbox that read:

Dear Mr. Celdran,
I have some Marcos memorabilia that I would like to sell but I am having some problems finding a prospective buyer. I have tried to contact the Marcos museum, family members, and reporters to try either address or some kind of contact information on a prospective but I have turned up nothing. Would it be possible for you to help me get information to be able to contact someone on this matter?

The item is a box of cigars that were hand made for president Marcos. Each cigar is cedar wrapped with the presidential seal on each one. As you will see in the photos the box also has the national intelligence and security authority seal. I believe that these were presented to president Marcos in 1992. The photo shows damage to the box but the damage is flaw on the picture not the actual box itself. I would prefer to have this item go back to the Philippines were it rightly belongs.

Thank you,
Janet Post

Truth be told, I have no idea how much these things are worth and if it has any quantifiable historical value at all. The best I could do for Ms. Post is to let the word out so that if somebody out there does know anything about this, they could kindly contact Ms. Post at janetp9898@yahoo.com to help her out. I'm not sure about the date of 1992 either. Didn't Marcos leave the Philippines in 1986? But I do have to say though that the seal on the cigars are definitely hard to find, it's the short lived Marcos-era eagle and not the Chimera symbol of today..