More on Vitolphilia

There is a gentleman with the knightly name of Florencio Gimenez Caballero de Angel Ramirez who has made his rather sizeable collection of vitolas available to the public in a virtual museum on the internet. The cite is mainly in Spanish, which most of our group knows anyway. But for those who do not it is easy to look through this man's unbelievable collection. He started collecting when he was seventeen years of age and the result of his zeal in collecting "con plena seriedad y vigor," resulting in one the most important and most complete collections of vitolas in the world. Eventually, our collector became part of the directorate of the Vitolphilia Association of Spain, and for more than 12 years of was President of the Vitophilic Group of Madrid.

He was invited three times to Cuba by its government to be both honored and to serve as a consultant to handle issues with its own vitolphilic issues.


I have copied his collection on "American Personalities" for an example of the literally hundreds of cigar labels--vitolas--that he has organized on his on-line museum. I'm not sure how Jefferson Davis gets along with Abraham Lincoln, Generals Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, and Rear Admiral Farragut (of "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" fame), but it all seems peaceful enough, proving once again that cigar-smoking can lead to peace. This is so because cigar smoking in common naturally leads to communication and dialogue, which very often leads to mutual understanding and even friendship.

The museum itself can be accessed by clicking here.