The horrible truth, Baron, is that if it looked like a paper binder, it probably was. I learned this when I was working in the industry many years ago. Homogenized tobacco leaf (HTL) is routinely used in the commercial or machine made industry as a wrapper. The largest users of this wrapper are Altadis and Swedish Match. This wrapper allows them to turn out incredible numbers of cigars on automated machines. However, there are some companies that turn out cheap, machine made cigars that go one step further and actually use paper as a binder. The paper used is not that different from what we call butcher paper, although usually thinner. It burns at the same rate as the short filler usually used in these smokes and allows the manufacturer to work with a lower overhead. The paper also burns easier than tobacco so the cigars stays lit, not unlike all the crap they put in cigarettes to enhance their burn. The paper has little taste so it doesn't interfere with the filler, however, the tobaccos in these smokes are usually so bad that the binder could be made out of cow patties and you wouldn't be able to tell.
The paper binders seem to be less prevalant today than they used to be. Maybe it's due to better and cheaper machine manufacturering techniques that utilize real tobacco or maybe it's just that there used to be so many more firms that produced cheap cigars. Whatever the reason, they do exist. The problem is, unless you dissect a smoke from each cheapie brand, you'll never know whether you're smoking a cigar or a notebook. Hope this helps.
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