Cigar Smoked By Winston Churchill During World War II To Be Auctioned Off

A cigar that was once smoked by Winston Churchill is set to be auctioned alongside a handwritten note and the jar it was once stored in. 

Churchill, the British prime minister who led the United Kingdom through most of World War II, gave the cigar as a memento in August 1944 to Hugh Stonehewer-Bird, the consul general in Rabat, Morocco. 

“It’s amazing what turns up in glass jars. This is an iconic piece of memorabilia connected to one of Britain’s most famous prime ministers and the Second World War,” said Charles Hanson, the owner of the auction house selling the unique item. “Churchill was renowned for his love of cigars and occasionally gave them as gifts to people who had helped him in any way.”

The cigar has been kept in the possession of the Stonehewer-Bird family for over 75 years and will be sold at an auction house in Derbyshire. The guide price is expected to be between $750 to $1120. 

“The original handwritten label provides the provenance collectors like,” Hanson said. “We hope this item will excel under the hammer.”

Churchill, one of Britain’s most honored political figures, was frequently photographed with cigars, and it was estimated that he went through between eight to 10 cigars every day. He once defended his smoking habit after the king of Saudi Arabia informed him that he would not be allowed to drink or smoke around him.

“As I was the host at the luncheon I raised the matter at once, and said to the interpreter that if it was the religion of His Majesty to deprive himself of smoking and alcohol I must point out that my rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them,” he wrote in his memoirs. 

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Cigars by the famed prime minister have done well at auctions before, with one selling for over $26,000 in March. That record-breaking cigar was one that Churchill had given to Chequers Trust auditor Leonard Herbert Norman in 1953. 

“The cigar box was circulated for the second time. I didn’t feel equal to smoking another,” he wrote in his memoirs. ‘But I did take one and hastily put it unseen (I think) into an inner pocket and still have it today.”

Last year, a box of Churchill’s cigars sold for nearly $20,000. The cigars, from Cuba, were labeled with his name and given to him by a New York businessman.

Bible Pulled From Utah School District Libraries Because Of ‘Vulgarity Or Violence’

The Bible has been pulled from the shelves of libraries in a school district in Utah after a parent claimed that it could be considered “pornographic.”

Elementary and middle school students in Utah’s Davis School District, located north of Salt Lake City, will no longer be able to find the Bible at school libraries after a district review committee decided to make it only available at high school libraries. 

School district spokesman Christopher Williams told NBC News that the committee chose to “retain the book in school library circulation only at the high school level based on age appropriateness due to vulgarity or violence.” 

The decision came after a parent, upset by a recent state law designed to keep “pornographic or indecent” materials out of school, filed a complaint against the Bible. 

“I thank the Utah Legislature and Utah Parents United for making this bad faith process so much easier and way more efficient,” the complaint said. “Now we can all ban books and you don’t even need to read them or be accurate about it. Heck, you don’t even need to see the book!”

“Incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide,” the complaint continued. “You’ll no doubt find that the Bible, under Utah Code Ann. § 76-10-1227, has ‘no serious values for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition.”

Another person has already filed a complaint to put the Bible back into circulation at all school levels, not just high school. 

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The controversy in Utah followed a host of complaints around the country about sexually explicit books being available at school libraries. This has prompted drives from conservative lawmakers and parents to remove the content. 

Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL), for instance, recently pushed to remove volumes such as “Let’s Talk About It,” which shows graphic depictions of how children can masturbate, as well as “Gender Queer,” which includes cartoons of homosexual activity.

In Virginia, a mother named Stacy Langton was barred from entering the school’s library after she exposed pornographic reading material available to Fairfax High School students. She made national news when she read from several books available to students that included graphic depictions of sex and pedophilia.