Hi Harry,
The codes you refer to (A16, A17, etc.) are means of identifying the back covers of Tintin books as used by the BD price guide
BDM: Trésors de la Bande Dessiné. The guide itself has been published since 1979 (now up to its 15th edition, see
here). Their coding system has become pretty much definitive, it's even used by Casterman in the book
Tintin: Noir sur Blanc (which also contains a lot of useful information on the early black and white editions).
Prior to 1942 all of the black and white books (from
Congo to
Crabe) had the standard brown/mustard colour which a small picture for the cover. For their final print Hergé drew new full colour covers, most of which went onto the colour editions too, except
Cigars and
Ottokar which were both later redrawn. The
Cigares cover you refer to shows Tintin peeking out from behind an Egyptian pillar and was only used for that 1942 edition. I suppose that partly explains why it's so sought after (although interestingly, it isn't actually as “rare” as the price tag suggests). The BDM values it at 4000 euros and says to add 150% for mint condition (one for wealthy Tintin fans!)
There's an interesting anecdote for the 1942
Cigares in
Tintin: Noir sur Blanc; it says that Hergé regretted he chose the colour black for the title because the word “Du” had become illegible in front of the Egyptian pillar. (Funnily enough I never noticed until I read that, what a perfectionist he was eh?) Anyhow, it certainly would be nice to see a facsimile edition of this (and
Ottokar), if only for the covers!
edit: For identification purposes the various editions of this book are shown on
this informative site - if you click on
Cigares the 1942 cover in question is the 4th image down. It also gives the BDM codes to the back covers (‘4ème plat’ in French). You would need a copy of BDM to know what exactly the differences are but it's normally something as tedious as a slightly different listing of the books available at the time...
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