Dear folks:
I've acquired some old, tall-style tins of GL Pease tobaccos over the years. I've smoked through some Bohemian Scandal, Raven's Wing, lots of Kensington, Charing Cross, Odyssey, Robusto, Stratford, etc. I've never had a problem until today, when I checked on a few tins of Samarra, one each from 2001-2003, from a few different sources.
The 02 was rattling around pretty obviously, the 01 less so, and the 03 not at all. I cracked the 02 to rehydrate, jar, and smoke it. When I got it open, it was pretty obvious what happened:
Right on the seam, there is pretty damning rust. And there are two other spots of rust. The label is loose and spins around pretty freely, so my circles indicating where you might expect rust are pretty useless. But there is no obvious wrong on the outside of this tin:
Moral of the story: the oldest Pease tins may be reaching the end of their life. Since the rusting isn't outside-in, but inside-out, it probably has nothing to do with storage conditions. And it's probably pretty random which tins are affected. I'm going to consider the half-life of these things as 12 years. Luckily the flatter tins, introduced in 2004-2005, seem to have no documented problems, though I've heard rumblings here and there.
Do yourself a favor and give all your old tall-style Pease tins a shake. All of the ones I've opened except this one have no movement, as these were used before Pease started doing broken flakes or plugs or anything, and the ribbons take up all the volume and then some when they're right. Don't be surprised if some need to be rehydrated when you open them.
I've acquired some old, tall-style tins of GL Pease tobaccos over the years. I've smoked through some Bohemian Scandal, Raven's Wing, lots of Kensington, Charing Cross, Odyssey, Robusto, Stratford, etc. I've never had a problem until today, when I checked on a few tins of Samarra, one each from 2001-2003, from a few different sources.
The 02 was rattling around pretty obviously, the 01 less so, and the 03 not at all. I cracked the 02 to rehydrate, jar, and smoke it. When I got it open, it was pretty obvious what happened:
Right on the seam, there is pretty damning rust. And there are two other spots of rust. The label is loose and spins around pretty freely, so my circles indicating where you might expect rust are pretty useless. But there is no obvious wrong on the outside of this tin:
Moral of the story: the oldest Pease tins may be reaching the end of their life. Since the rusting isn't outside-in, but inside-out, it probably has nothing to do with storage conditions. And it's probably pretty random which tins are affected. I'm going to consider the half-life of these things as 12 years. Luckily the flatter tins, introduced in 2004-2005, seem to have no documented problems, though I've heard rumblings here and there.
Do yourself a favor and give all your old tall-style Pease tins a shake. All of the ones I've opened except this one have no movement, as these were used before Pease started doing broken flakes or plugs or anything, and the ribbons take up all the volume and then some when they're right. Don't be surprised if some need to be rehydrated when you open them.