Which Jemar Case Fits Your Cigar?

Most disappointments with cigar cases come from buying the case first and the cigar second. A handsome three-finger case is chosen for its leather, brought home, and then discovered to be a millimetre too narrow for the Toro that its owner actually smokes. The wrapper catches on the way out, the foot crushes on the way in, and the case retires to a drawer. The fix is to reverse the order: measure the cigar, then choose the case. Jemar makes that easy because its bodies are cut to real formats rather than to a generic idea of "a cigar."

Know your ring gauge

Ring gauge is the diameter of a cigar in sixty-fourths of an inch. A 50-ring Robusto is fifty sixty-fourths across — a little under two centimetres. A 54-ring Toro is about 2.1 cm; a 60-ring Gordo is closer to 2.4 cm. The number is printed on most boxes and listed on every product page, so it is easy to know, and it is the first thing to establish before looking at any case.

Jemar's standard bodies — the 464, 460 and 458 families among them — are sized internally at 2.4 cm across. That is a comfortable fit for anything up to about a 54 ring: the cigar slides in without friction and does not rattle. For heavier gauges the house makes the 110 XL body, cut wider to take the 56- to 60-ring cigars that have become common in the last decade. If you smoke Gordos, do not try to force them into a standard tube; take the XL from the start.

Then the length

Length is more forgiving, because most Jemar bodies telescope. The tube is made in two parts: the inner section slides out to meet the length of the cigar, and the cap closes down over it, so that one case will fit a range of lengths without leaving empty space at the end. A 464/3, sized internally at 12.5 cm, is cut for the Robusto, the Edmundo and the Siglo VI, and will also take a Corona or a Petit Corona with the tube collapsed a little further.

What a telescoping case will not do is stretch to a Churchill. A 7-inch cigar is nearly 18 cm long, and it wants a body made for it — one of the longer tubes in the range rather than a Robusto case extended to its limit. Similarly, a Double Corona or a Lancero, being unusual shapes, deserves a fitting rather than a guess. If you smoke long formats regularly, tell us; there is a body for them.

Flap or telescope?

The second construction Jemar offers is the flap case: a single tube closed by a leather flap rather than a sliding cap. It is faster to open with one hand and slightly slimmer in profile, and some smokers prefer it for those reasons. The trade-off is that a flap case is cut to one length and does not adjust, so it suits someone who smokes a consistent format. If your humidor holds six different vitolas, the telescoping body is the more useful choice.

How many cigars?

Capacity has its own story in this journal, but the short version is this: one for an occasion, two or three for an evening or a day out, four or five for a weekend. A three-cigar case is the most popular body for good reason — it covers most days without becoming a brick in the pocket. Start there unless you know you need otherwise.

A quick worked example

Suppose you smoke mostly Robustos with the occasional Toro. Your ring gauge is 50 to 54, your length 5 to 6 inches. The 464/3 in whichever finish you like will fit all of that with room to telescope. Now suppose instead you have moved to 60-ring Gordos: the 110 XL/2 or XL/3 is the case for you, and the standard 464 will frustrate you daily. And if a Churchill is your regular smoke, we would steer you to a longer body outright.

Fit it once, properly

El Laguito Cigars keeps the full Jemar range in Mississauga so that a case can be fitted with the cigars you actually carry — bring one, or bring the band. For customers elsewhere in Canada, send us the vitolas you smoke and we will match them to a body and confirm the internal measurements before anything ships. A case that fits is a case that gets used; a case that almost fits is a case that gets forgotten.