LeRoy Neiman 2025 Collector’s Edition Cigars

All profits from this limited-edition luxury cigar collaboration will support arts education in public schools

J.C. Newman Cigar Co. is introducing the LeRoy Neiman 2025 Collector’s Edition cigars at the Premium Cigar Association trade show this weekend (April 11-14, 2025) in New Orleans. This is the third year that America’s oldest family-owned premium cigar maker and the LeRoy Neiman and the Janet Byrne Neiman Foundation have collaborated to create a luxury, handcrafted cigar honoring the late, iconic, cigar-smoking American artist, LeRoy Neiman. Continuing the tradition from previous years, all profits will be donated to support arts education in public schools. 

“This year’s edition features LeRoy’s painting, ‘Jazz Horns,’ a beautiful image depicting the spontaneous energy and sounds of jazz,” said Drew Newman, fourth-generation owner of J.C. Newman. “We chose this image because of the return of our annual trade show to New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz.”

“Jazz was always fuel for LeRoy Neiman’s creativity,” said Tara Zabor, LeRoy Neiman and Janet Byrne Neiman Foundation Executive Director. “LeRoy spent many nights in clubs drawing live performances and hobnobbing with the greats like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. He had a passion for the improvisation unique to the genre which he mimicked in his own painting practice. Down the hall from his New York City studio, you could frequently hear jazz standards belting out of the speaker while the aromas of a freshly lit cigar wafted throughout the space. In Jazz Horns, one can sense we are in the midst of peak harmonization in the brass section or in full swing amid the musicians, where LeRoy felt right at home.”

LeRoy Neiman Collector’s Edition cigars are handcrafted at J.C. Newman’s historic El Reloj cigar factory in Tampa, Florida. The 2025 edition is a 6 1/4” x 52 Torpedo rolled with a Havana Rosado wrapper, a Florida Sun Grown binder, and a blend of aged filler tobaccos from Latin America.  This year’s edition is limited to 15,000 cigars, packed in 750 cabinets of 20 cigars with a suggested retail price of $22 per cigar. J.C. Newman is shipping these cigars in the fall.

J.C. Newman and the Foundation will be donating all profits from this collaboration to support arts education in Tampa’s public schools, including those surrounding the El Reloj cigar factory.

“Every cigar from the LeRoy Neiman 2025 Collector’s Edition directly supports our ongoing mission at the Foundation,” noted Tara Zabor. “The profits help us improve arts education in local public schools, keeping LeRoy’s passion for nurturing creativity alive and thriving among the next generation of artists.”

LeRoy Neiman Collectors Edition 2024 Retailers

WRAPPER: Havana Rosado
BINDER: Florida Sun Grown
FILLER: Latin America
FACTORY: J.C. Newman El Reloj, Tampa, FL

WRAPPER: Havana Rosado
BINDER: Florida Sun Grown
FILLER: Latin America  
 FACTORY: J.C. Newman El Reloj, Tampa, FL

WRAPPER: Havana Rosado
BINDER: Florida Sun Grown
FILLER: Latin America
FACTORY: J.C. Newman El Reloj, Tampa, FL

About J.C. Newman Cigar Co.

Founded in 1895 by Julius Caeser Newman, J.C. Newman Cigar Company is the oldest family-owned premium cigar maker in America. J.C. Newman handcrafts premium cigars at its historic El Reloj cigar factory in Tampa, Florida; at the J.C. Newman PENSA cigar factory in Estelí, Nicaragua; and with its longtime partners at Tabacalera A. Fuente in Santiago, Dominican Republic. The Fuente and Newman families founded the Cigar Family Charitable Foundation, which supports low-income families in the Dominican Republic with education, health care, vocational training, and clean water.

About the LeRoy Neiman and Janet Byrne Neiman Foundation

The LeRoy Neiman and Janet Byrne Neiman Foundation seeks to perpetuate the legacy and philanthropic spirit of LeRoy Neiman, and to advance and share the impact of his life, his ideals and artwork in the U.S. and throughout the world. The Foundation supports organizations that promote the study, improvement and advancement of the arts and provide opportunities for at- risk youth to develop paths to successful futures. 

A Leader in the Cigar Industry

A century ago, Angel Cuesta was one of the leaders of the cigar industry in Tampa.  Inside each box of Angel Cuesta cigars is the following excerpt of a story by Angel Cuesta on why Tampa was the Fine Cigar Capital of the World:

“If you are a man who enjoys a really fine cigar, you have probably long since discovered the hand-made Tampa cigar with its superb smoking qualities – choice, clear Havana tobacco at its best! If you haven’t made this discovery, we believe it is time you did. And so we tell you how these cigars are created, and about Tampa, too – for the story of fine cigars is inseparable from the story of Tampa.

“Tampa today is the bustling metropolis of Florida’s West Coast, center of the most populous – and prosperous area of Florida. Despite the fact that it is the State’s leading industrial city, it is also a resort city – equally a fine place to work, to live, and to play. It is a city of color and contrasts; of carnival gaiety and progressive modern enterprise. Its Latin Quarter is a carry-over from the Old World into the new. In this Latin Quarter, center of life for some 40,000 persons of Spanish and Cuban descent, are located the majority of the cigar factories that produce these fine cigars. 

“The story of these cigars begins long ago. It begins in the mild, tropical climes of Cuban’s picturesque tobacco plantations. It begins in the skilled fingers of the cigarmaker, whose art is a heritage from the Old World.  Yes, and it begins in the minds of a few enterprising men who had the foresight to recognize Tampa’s advantages as a potential cigar center. 

It was Senor V. Martinez Ybor who pioneered the movement which made Tampa the cigar capital of America. In 1869 Ybor had transferred his factory from Havana to Key West, to escape the depredations of the Spanish volunteer troops. As others followed, Key West became the center of America’s clear Havana industry of America’s clear Havana industry. 

“Seventeen years later, Ybor and Eduardo Manrara, his partner, were impressed by the climatic and geographical possibilities of Tampa as a manufacturing site, when seeking a more favorable location for their operation. Tampa, then but a sprawling, lusty frontier hamlet, offered a large area of local hands to the cigar men, thus laying the cornerstone for one of the city’s principal industries. Other alert cigar men followed. Ybor’s example, and Tampa’s emergence as the manufacturing hub of Florida became an accomplished fact. 

“Today, the finest cigars in the world are made in Tampa."

Angel LaMadrid Cuesta

April 1948

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