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There is a feeling of decadence that comes from smoking a good cigar that is unmatched by almost any other leisure activity. . . .

“A box of 50 Chateau d’Yquem can fetch £10,000 or more at auction,” said Mitchell Orchant, managing director of the London cigar merchant C.Gars Ltd. That is nearly $17,000. “The Anniversario, can sell for £400 a cigar and its value just seems to keep on going up.” Both cigars were made by Davidoff, the famous Geneva tobacco house.

As the price tags suggest, these are not just any old stogies. Examples of a prestigious elite of vintage Cuban cigars, they date from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s, a golden age when a mixture of local Cuban artisanal skill, tobacco quality and the demands of a handful of European exporters combined to create some of the finest cigars ever made.

The intervening years have only served to improve them further, according to the experts.

“The cigars are like a good Bordeaux,” said Mr. Orchant. “In the right conditions they can keep for almost ever, and year after year, like good wine, they get better.”

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