I'm considering making some cigar-box pen cases for family members for the holiday, but I'm concerned about the smell. Is there a lingering and permanent odor of tobacco? I would tend to expect this, but one never knows, so it's worth asking.

The problem is that my father is a former cigar smoker, so the smell might subject him to a minor form of the torments of Tantalus, and my mother and I share a severe allergy to tobacco.

If there's an odor to be expected from cigar boxes, are there alternatives which are similarly inexpensive? Most of the relatively nice-looking boxes I've seen have been both too small and too expensive for this project.

Well, if you get boxes thathad contained hi-quality cigars, those woul dbe cedar lined, so you wouldsmell the cedar wood, plus the smell of good quality tobacco. I happen to like that smell, even though I am not a smoker.
I'd recommend that you go to a smokeshop and ask the guys there if that have a box thatthey just emptied out. Give the empty box the sniff-test, to see if it is something you can live with.

The Carlos Torano brand sells their cigars in individually sealed glass (test)tubes inside the box, and a lot of other brands do the same - this is the best way to go.

Unfortunately, once I enter the tobacconist's shop, I won't be able to smell much. The aforementioned severe allergy, I'm afraid. Tobacco closes up the airways in a hurry.

Do even the cedar-lined boxes retain the aroma of tobacco?

I have three cigar boxes I got for storing pens and ink. Much to my surprise, none of them smelled like cigars. If you do get a box that smells like cigars, maybe get hamster cage litter (usually it is pine shavings) and fill the offending box with it for a little while. Then it will smell like a pine tree instead of tobacco.

Thanks, that's good to know.

if you visit a good cigar store many sell or give the wooden boxes they shouldnt smell of cigars but of the wood they are made of i have several and no smell only the smell of wood i buy them for a couple of dollars each and the money they get goes to a foundation as a donation cool huh

The cedar wood used for cigar boxes is harvested from a hardwood tree grown in Central or South America. It has a pleasant, mellow scent. The softwood cedar grown in North America and elsewhere is a completely different tree and very different scent in the wood.

There should be no "cigar" smell, especially if you let the boxes air out for a week or so.

I recently made a new cigar-box storage case . . . it still contained the plastic tray used to hold the stogies, and it was sized and shaped so perfectly that I couldn't help but use it. It was originally covered in a kind of red fuzz, and I think it held the smokes au naturale (no glass tubes). I covered the tray and the box lid with felt, glued on using spray-on craft glue. I picked the box up last Saturday, and made the box on Wednesday.

I just gave it the smell test, and no hint of tobacco.

Just a data point for your interest . . .

To get the majority of the cigar smell out of a cigar box, try emptying it out and putting some cat litter in the cigar box (the kind with baking soda or activated charcoal, not the clumping kind), close it, and let it sit for a week or so. It will work for you.

But like Wolverine, I quite like the smell of a good quality tobacco!

Here is a step by step on how to make one.

Bob

Cigar Box Storage Case

Thanks, all. I'm going to begin canvassing the local tobacconists to see if any are prepared to relinquish their old cigar boxes.