Few know it today, but there was once a huge tobacco industry in East Westphalia. That’s also where Volker Knickmeyer comes from. The 63-year-old marketing clerk lives in Minden and brought something big with him from his homeland: an XXL cigar and a wooden box with smaller tobacco products.
“Have you stopped smoking?” moderator Horst Lichter wants to know from his guest. However, he turns out to be a non-smoker. What connects him with the cigar: Knickmeyer is a local researcher and has dealt with the history of an old cigar factory where his grandfather was a foreman. The Blase company from Lübbecke was Germany’s largest cigar factory in the 1930s. Tobacco products also come from the stocks.
Sven Deutschmanek is enthusiastic. Also because he is from the area himself. According to the expert, the giant cigar is a representative model for events and trade fairs. It is hand-wound and possibly even completely filled with tobacco. The suitcase is also intended for trade fairs and dates from the 1940s or early 1950s. The seller would like to have 800 euros together for the box and giant cigar. Deutschmanek doesn’t quite go along with that, he still thinks 500 to 700 euros is possible.
In any case, the XXL cigar is very popular in the dealership: “You can smoke them until the end of your life,” exclaims Jan Čížek happily. “What we’re missing here is a lighter,” says Wolfgang Pauritsch when salesman Knickmeyer enters the room. “We wanted to test the big one.” But Čížek corrects his colleague: “You need a burner for that!”
It continues in a cheerful mood: Walter Lehnertz starts with an unusual amount and offers 250 euros, but then corrects himself to 280 euros. Several dealers bid, but “Waldi” insisted on the deal and ultimately bought the cigar for 500 euros. “I’ve never seen such a beating as a cigar, I have to have it,” he explains his motivation.
Colleague Sarah Schreiber is happy for her colleague: “I think it’s part of the ‘Waldi’,” says the 36-year-old, and Jan Čížek predicts: “You’ll smoke it up by tomorrow!”
Source: “Bares for Rares” in the ZDF media library
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