Check on Your Old Tall-Style Pease Tins

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escioe

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 31, 2013
702
4
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:
xyH4WXH.jpg


cg9w3Pb.jpg

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:
A9qzbu9.jpg


HTD3tWa.jpg

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.

 

beefeater33

Lifer
Apr 14, 2014
4,063
6,118
Central Ohio
Great information here- Thanks!

I too have had a few (minor) issues with the old style GLP's. Mine was a tin of Tribute, from 2001. It rusted from the inside as well, I caught it early & it needed just a touch of re-hydration. My other 15 or so seem to be ok for now,(crosses fingers)...................

 

jon11

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 25, 2013
619
591
What changes has he made on his current tins to eliminate this problem?

 

mikestanley

Lifer
May 10, 2009
1,698
1,126
Akron area of Ohio
Yeah. It seemed to be a big problem.

That's why he switched. I have but one

of those old tins left. It is a shame. Such nice

tobacco. Fwiw, the early 8 oz tins seem ok.

Mike S.

 

jon11

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 25, 2013
619
591
I guess McClelland uses aluminum now also...correct?

 

escioe

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 31, 2013
702
4
Pease tobaccos are tinned by Cornell & Diehl so it is up to them to make the needed changes.
Just in case it wasn't clear, C&D and GL Pease tins have all been fine since at least 2005, when they changed to the wider, shorter tins.

 

jon11

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 25, 2013
619
591
I recently opened a tin of 1995 Blackwoods that was totally rusted from the inside. I wonder if McClellands tins have also changed over the years, or if it was just bad luck?

 

troutface

Lifer
Oct 26, 2012
2,328
11,362
Colorado
I removed the label on my tin of Samarra to inspect it and found a date stamp of 4/21/99. On Pease's website it says Samarra was introduced in March of 2000. So this stuff was tinned 11 months before release ? I hope Greg will jump in here and shed some light on this.

 

condorlover1

Lifer
Dec 22, 2013
7,993
26,606
New York
Thats really interesting and makes you wonder what the inside of some of the pre war tins look like after 70 odd years. The fact that tins from 2000 are rusting from the inside out is pretty worrying. Luckily I don't have any of these tins but I have seen them on Oi Vay occasionally and thought about picking up one or two for friends as Christmas gifts.

 

pipestud

Lifer
Dec 6, 2012
2,010
1,749
Robinson, TX.
I remember Greg Pease addressing this problem in the past but can't remember exactly what he said other than the fact it was a problem with quality control from the tin maker. It was also a problem with only certain vintage tins. I've sold literally hundreds of the old style Pease two ounce tins and only a very, very, very small percentage had the rust issue.
Pipestud

 

escioe

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 31, 2013
702
4
I removed the label on my tin of Samarra to inspect it and found a date stamp of 4/21/99. On Pease's website it says Samarra was introduced in March of 2000. So this stuff was tinned 11 months before release ? I hope Greg will jump in here and shed some light on this.
I noted a similar date on my tin, under the label. I'm guessing that's the date of tin manufacture. Pease's tinning dates are on the bottom. At some point, he changed from tinning date to batch date of the blend.
The seal on my tin of Gaslight arrived broken. Shipping can be rough, I still prefer to just jar everything.
I've had this happen on one or two of the 8 oz tins shipped from SP.com. I called about it and made them aware of it. Haven't had this problem since.
I've sold literally hundreds of the old style Pease two ounce tins and only a very, very, very small percentage had the rust issue.
With a dwindling supply of these old tins, and the increased age, I wonder if it will become more common over time.
I'm in no hurry to smoke through the last of my old-style tall tins of Pease tobacco, but I'm keeping an eye on them, whereas I don't worry about the newer ones at all.

 

mcitinner1

Lifer
Apr 5, 2014
4,043
24
Missouri
p6170389-600x450.jpg


This is a tin from 2002. Notice the wavy metal where the bottom lid wraps around the bottom of the can?

The contents were desert dry but I didn't know to check the seam on the side.
tinner

 

glpease

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jun 17, 2010
239
96
California
This just came to my attention. Yes, there were some problems with a couple batches of the early, tall tins, which was one of the things that drove the decision to switch. The new tins have been problem free. When we see problems like this, it may seem as though it's much wider spread than it is. In fact, there were probably a few hundred defective tins over the years, out of many thousands produced. The failure rate is under 0.1%, by back of the envelope reckoning, but even that is too high for me. I've lost my share of tins, as well.
The new tins are both aluminum (won't rust) and well coated, and are very consistent. I'm really happy with them.
As regards a tin of Samarra from 1999, it's simply not possible, as GLPease as a company didn't even exist until 2000. Until the end of 1999, I was still operating the previous incarnation, F&P. So, either someone made a mistake on the date stamp, or it's some other product code, perhaps the lot number of the tin or something similar.
I hope this answers any questions.

 

escioe

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 31, 2013
702
4
Thanks for chiming in, Greg. As I said, this has been my only problem tin of the earlier styles. And once rehydrated, the Samarra inside still smokes great.

 
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