John F. Kennedy Unsmoked Cigar.

Rare unopened cigar given to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy by a Philippine Ambassador to the United States, handsomely presented with a portrait of Kennedy. The Coronas Alhambra cigar is mounted in a shadowbox opening and is still stored in a cellophane sheath printed in gold lettering: “Specially Made For President Kennedy.” Under its red and gold label and black band inscribed “Choicest Philippine Tobacco Sumatra Wrapper." Beneath the cigar is an engraved plaque, "John F. Kennedy Personally Owned Cigar 'The Best in the World' received after he banned importation of all Cuban products including cigars and just after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Included is a photograph purchased from the JFK Library." The 8 inch by 10 inch black and white photograph above shows President Kennedy smoking a cigar while reading the sports section of The New York Times on Saturday, August 31, 1963. The President was enjoying a few moments of leisure time aboard the Presidential yacht Honey Fitz, then floating off the coast of Hyannis Port, Massachusetts on Labor Day weekend. President John F. Kennedy had been receiving cigars as gifts from Filipino Presidents and Ambassadors since his inauguration, as revealed by material found in the collection of the JFK Presidential Library & Museum. On February 6, 1962, Kennedy ordered his head of press and fellow cigar smoker Pierre Salinger to obtain as many Cuban cigars as he could only hours before he authorized an embargo on trade between the United States and Cuba. As he recounted in Cigar Aficionado, Salinger was successful in obtaining 1,200 Cuban H. Upmann Petit Coronas, Kennedy's favorite cigar. Despite his large collection, Kennedy was not Churchillian in his cigar smoking, he was often more interested in how the cigars he was gifted were obtained, rather than smoking them. His cigar smoking did, however, make the cigars fashionable and an essential component of White House dinner parties. In fine condition. Matted and framed. The entire piece measures 14.5 inches by 21.5 inches. Rare and desirable. Accompanied by four photocopied letters from April 1961 to January 1963 about the acquisition of the cigars from the Philippine's President and Ambassadors.