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Comment by Bill Baker on October 7, 2014 at 1:29am

My other hobby is Amateur (Ham) Radio.  Both pursuits offer something for everybody. Do you want to talk across town or around the world. Voice or morse code. Use a computer for keyboard to keyboard over the air. Slow scan TV etc etc.  Here we can use a variety of store bought or homemade items for the string(s) to vibrate. The ideas are almost endless, the creativity is amazing and the ideas shared.   Personally, I like the cigar boxes. Using different brands and for the most part preserving the original look. But again, I really enjoy seeing the home-brew boxes you guys (and gals) come up with. 

B-

Comment by Uncle John on October 7, 2014 at 12:36am

The liquor store here in my small town (5000 above average souls) used to give me some cigar boxes.  Now it seem that they are getting more cigars in individually wrapped 'humidity' controlled containers.  

 

I think there is a lot of good in home made boxes, tins, hubcaps, bean pole women,  fat women and cake pans.

Comment by TN Twang on October 3, 2014 at 2:37am

I completely agree with what you guys said. Here are some random thoughts:

1. I've got a buddy who likes to make boxes (jewelry, funeral ashes, you name it). He has given me a couple to experiment with and would love to make a little cash selling his boxes instead of seeing it go to the tobacco industry. 

2. A few months ago I did a Google search and found at least one company in the US that makes cigar boxes for specialty tobacco companies. I don't know what their minimum order is, but it seems like either CBGitty or one of the regional CBG "clubs" could source 'em directly from the manufacturer.

3. On one of the forums here someone was displaying the label for the "Faux Cigar Company" that they'd made up on their computer and glued onto a homemade box. At a glance, it looked like the real thing.

4. In a Popular Mechanics article from the early 20th century (See Jehle's "One Man's Trash."), we're told to get a cigar box and remove all the paper to get to the wood underneath. This fixation with labels and tax stamps relates to cigar boxes as collectables--not to their use to build musical instruments. Also, if I had a rare and valuable cigar box, I doubt that I would cut holes in it and poke a stick through it. (Sell it to buy more frets and tuners.)

TN

Comment by Bill Baker on October 1, 2014 at 2:58pm

Hi Kid...We are in agreement.. I certainly appreciate anyone using anything to make an instrument. I am amazed on a daily basis, the ingenuity and creativity of others.  At this stage in my life, I am only concerning myself with 3 string CBGs, hence the search for some in the Oklahoma City area.

I am not a smoker, at least for many years.  I was floored when I saw the price on some of the cigar boxes.

Over $25 for a cigar or $525 for a box. Wow....I think the cigar shop is only getting a dollar or two for the return of the boxes but I may have misunderstood.  There may be some other angles to this that didn't come out. Having a credit of some sort with the cigar company my be worth more than the actual amount. ??

Anyway.   Keep on building..

Comment by The Phrygian Kid on October 1, 2014 at 12:43pm

When you tell yourself 'cigar box guitar'  where is the emphasis ?

cigar ?

box ?

guitar ?

some guys really need that graphic of the couple voluptuous women and the grapevines.  Some guys have quite a fetish for the tax stamp.  Others just want a box they can jam a stick into.

i like cookie tins, Im good.  While my country's government taxes the living shit out of all tobacco products, plasters em with ugly health warnings, and eventually outlaws all branding (leading to generic, ugly boxes anyway..)  they do nothing about the obesity epidemic.  So I'm good :)  I like to build with what i can get my hands on for free.  There are others who go to extreme lengths to get hold of a particular brand of cigar box, so I can see this having quite an impact on those guys eh...

The big question - if the 'cigar' part of the acronym IS important to you is this 'How much are the big companies crediting for the box ?'..  If its only a couple bucks then I guess that'll be the new going rate for em.  Its difficult for me to picture the typical affluent cigar smoker happily paying a premium for his imported cigars when the packaging is suddenly recycled, but I don't know any cigar smokers really thats just a guess.