One of the worlds largest and most valuable jewel collections, the Imperial Crown Jewels of Persia, or Crown Jewels of Iran, consists of a mind-boggling number of treasures On display at the Museum of The Treasury of National Iranian Jewels in Tehran, Iran, the collection ranges from breathtaking tiaras to jewel-studded swords to princely thrones, and much more

For many of us, casino gambling and cigar smoking go together like Frank and Bing Generations of first-time Vegas visitors have enhanced their experience via frequent applications of cigar smoke, just like those iconic Rat Packers of yesteryear with their impeccable suits, suave manner, and constantly-replenished supplies of alcohol and tobacco

Cigars have long been a part of the iconography of American politics On the negative side, early-twentieth-century newspaper cartoons symbolized the greed of villainous "party bosses" and robber barons by showing fat men lighting their stogies with one-hundred dollar bills

The best-laid plans of mice and men Even the most careful cigar smoker - the one who only buys premium cigars, keeps them stored in a humidor at around seventy percent relative humidity, and lights them slowly and carefully, turning the cigar in the open flame to achieve an all-over even burn - sometimes winds up with a dud

Picture this: You're going to have dinner at the home of a famous wine collector - somebody famous for the quality and discrimination of his or her palate, perhaps a wealthy person who can afford to buy those vintages the rest of us can only dream of savoring You arrive

Premium cigars are many peoples' idea of the ultimate inexpensive luxury item So with more and more Americans putting more thought into their meals - as the proliferation of magazines such as Food and Wine, Cook's Illustrated and Food, as well as the new popularity of cooking shows and books attests - it's natural enough to wonder how these two pleasures might combine

The rebounding of the premium-cigar market is one of the oddest business success stories of the past fifteen years With an aging customer base, decades of competition from cigarettes and overall consumer trends indicating a decline in smoking in general, many observers had written off premium cigars as yesterday's luxury item—until 1992, when the industry showed significant fourth-quarter growth

For most smokers, the science of taste is like the innards of your cigar lighter - you don't care how it works as long as it does Still, it is - along with smell - the critical sense that allows you to enjoy the sensation of smoking, and learning more about how taste works may enable you to get more from your cigars

igars are part of the world of music - or vice versa After all, a lot of great pop and jazz music has been created by people who cut their teeth playing in ultra-smoky bars, and Cuban folk music features an entire tradition of songs about cigars

A few years ago, in 2006, the Nevada legislature imposed a public smoking ban The new rule doesn't apply - as yet - to the storied casinos of Las Vegas, where smoking is still allowed on gaming floors

Cigar smoking is the most social of pleasures And with bans on public smoking enacted in almost thirty states, covering half the United States population, cigar smokers must be feeling more and more like an embattled minority

Cigar smoking is all about shared pleasure After all, it swept Victorian England and became a national pastime in part because it gave men something to do with their hands while they talked after dinner

Many of us live, and think, as if "nature" and "culture" were separate things, kept apart by a porous but clear boundary In fact, it’s usually hard to tell where one ends and the other begins

Cigars have been with us for thousands of years - far too long for any historian, however dedicated, to trace Tobacco may have grown on this planet (according to current speculation by paleontologists) for as long as eight thousand years, and archaeological data suggests it's been smoked for at least four thousand

However others may feel about them, there's no doubt that public-smoking bans, and other restrictions on tobacco use, leave cigar aficionados burning up Anyone who reads cigar magazines, for example, will know that - however politically unpredictable they may be in other areas - this is one legislative trend all those magazines' writers seem to agree on

Since so many artists, writers, and other creative folks have been cigar smokers, it’s perhaps no surprise that some wonderful—as well as not-so-wonderful—films and plays center on the world of cigars Some of these works are already well-known, while others might require a little help reaching their audiences

In his essay "Sifting the Ashes," the writer Jonathan Franzen has the following to say about the smoking habit he struggles to quit: "[W]hen you're smoking, you're acutely present to yourself: you step outside the unconscious forward rush of life" Beautiful words, with which many cigar smokers would agree

For those who do a lot of entertaining, it’s hard to come up with new party themes But the recent popularity of cigars offers a great creative party idea for stressed-out would-be party hosts

It’s no surprise that we tend to give cigars as gift items at weddings, bachelor parties, bachelorette parties, and new births, or that cigars remain popular gift item ideas for new dads, new moms, new brides and grooms, and newly engaged couples After all, cigars have been associated with celebration and ceremony, with marking the moment, for as long as they’ve existed

It's tough being a TV character Whether you're a crime-solving supersleuth or a wacky next door neighbor, the pressures are intense—villains that refuse to be caught, friends who don't share your enthusiasm for celebrating Festivus