Cigar Aficionado

Unless you’re a high-ranking government official, it’s unlikely you’ll ever get inside the gold vault at Fort Knox, but that doesn’t mean you can’t bring a little Fort Knox into your smoking room. Thanks to the vision and engineering acumen of the British company Son & Son, you can now ash your cigar into a gold or silver bar replica so convincing, it will look as though you’ve robbed the Federal Reserve. 

To attain such a realistic look and feel, Son & Son mills its ashtrays from solid blocks of brass (gold model) or steel (silver) on a computer-controlled machine to recreate the sloping bevels of the bullion shape. An ashtray pattern is machined out of the bottom. It’s then polished with a brushed-silver satin finish or electroplated in 24K gold—all to stunning effect.  

The opulent fine finishes are also durable and burn-resistant. Half the fun is holding the ashtray in your hand just to feel the sheer weight of it (nearly two pounds). But keep in mind, these ashtrays are prone to fingerprints, which is why Son & Son includes a suede cleaning cloth. A quick buffing restores its luster after you’ve turned the ashtray over to show off its bullion side. 

The ashtrays measure 6 inches long, and they don’t come cheap. The silver-bar ashtray costs £599 ($800), the gold-bar, £799 ($1,061). Seeing as real gold bullion of equal weight would cost more than $40,000, these replicas just might be a steal, but then again, who would ever ash on a real bar of gold?

Visit son-son.com