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Wellington

Part of the Furniture Now
Dec 31, 2012
531
578
I was reading in another thread and saw some comment that they had 70 some odd tins of one kind of tobacco stored away. I'm still not sure if this was an joke or legitimate, I nearly soiled myself. I'm fairly new to pipe smoking, new to smoking it more 'seriously,' if you will, and I had no idea people stored away so much tobacco. Then I was just reading in another current thread about someone storing tobacco tins in other containers and keeping a database. I think I am completely ignorant of what kind of hoarders pipe smokers can be! ;)
But honestly, how big is your stockpile of tobaccos? I have one unopened tin . . .

 

swhipple

Starting to Get Obsessed
Nov 2, 2011
258
2
LOL I have one unopened tin myself. I am planning on buying some Escudo to stash away since it's one of my favourites. I haven't found too many others that I'm sure I'll still like well enough to buy a bunch of tins.

 

knightmare

Lurker
Apr 10, 2012
36
0
Having started seriously smoking about a year and a half ago - I don't have many Tins, I normally buy in Bulk. Nightcap Tins doesn't last long in my possession, the thought of storing a tin of that seems like a crime to me.
But in my collection, I have: (At work so kinda ball-parking it)

16-18oz Newminster English Orient

16oz Newminster Ultimate English

8oz SG Squadron Leader

8oz PS Bullseye Flake

8oz PS Proper English

8oz Dunhill My Mix 965

8-10oz Sample Pack / Misc 2oz Bags (I call em' Taste Testers) (about 5-6 bags of different stuff)

5 Tins 1xIrish Flake, 4xDunhill Flake(3 Open, 1 open at home, 2 open at work)

 

judcole

Lifer
Sep 14, 2011
7,149
32,917
Detroit
Not as big as I would like it to be, but bigger than it was a year ago. :D

About 10.5 pounds
This does not include the current rotation, which is probably another 1.5 pounds.

 

lordnoble

Lifer
Jul 13, 2010
2,677
14
This isn't the first time this has come up... Here are two great threads:
SHOW US YOUR TOBACCO STASH
and
YOUR CELLAR
Obviously, some members have been doing this for a very long time, others not so much. Don't feel like this is a contest. It's not. Those of us who like to smoke aged tobacco or want to make sure we have the blends we love in the future cellar as much as we can when we can. If that's not how you smoke, there's no reason to stock up.

YMMV
-Jason

 

dragonslayer

Lifer
Dec 28, 2012
1,026
7
Pittsburgh
Jesus, I got to stop and think about this truely slipery slope. I've smoked 10,000+ cigars of just about every type over the last 20 years (that's 1.5 a day...so more), and still have a humidor with some specials I'm saving. I've been enjoying my pipe tobacco more these days and with the up coming smack down, building a cellar is a must. Looking at some of yours is just... Well amazing.
So I'm sitting here ready to place a 5 lb and 15 tin order thinking... Oh this can get out of control easy.
Craig yeah (OCD)

 

mrenglish

Lifer
Dec 25, 2010
2,220
72
Columbus, Ohio
Yep, that is how I started. I would buy two tins, one to smoke and the other to stash. Then when I got serious, I might order 10-20 tins at once. It adds up over time and it will never be cheaper than now.

 

fnord

Lifer
Dec 28, 2011
2,746
8
Topeka, KS
Loseth:
In this current political environment, many of us feel that that taxes and prices on loose tobacco in the US will treble or quadruple in the coming year. I'm doing my best to lay in a pound a month of favorite tobaccos with the odd tin or so thrown in. I'm way late, of course. But a little bit now is much better than nothing on down the road.
Besides, if the balloon ever goes up, I'll have a semi-valuable bartering cache.
Fnord

 

rmbittner

Lifer
Dec 12, 2012
2,759
1,994
I would buy two tins, one to smoke and the other to stash.
I'll buy one or two tins of a new-to-me blend, if the reviews are mixed and I don't always love the company's offerings. But if it's a company I tend to love (McClelland, Esoterica, GLPease), then I'll buy 11 tins at a time: one to try now and 10 to cellar.
Yes, as my recent trade with mrenglish can attest (10 tins of Key Largo), this doesn't always work out perfectly for me. Sometimes a blend I think I'll love just leaves me cold. But that could be for a variety of reasons: maybe the blend needs time in the tin, maybe I'm not in the right mood for it, maybe I haven't figured out how to smoke this particular blend to get the most from it. So it's nice to have tins available for sampling a year or two down the road.
As I've said elsewhere, though, my stockpiling/cellaring isn't politically or financially motivated in the least. I'm guarding against the loss of favorite blends due to companies going out of business, leaf becoming unavailable, that kind of thing.
BTW, loseth, I'm currently at 831 tins. (Please don't soil yourself.) Most are 2oz/50g tins, but I have a number of half-pound and pound tins as well. (I never buy bulk.)
Bob

 

numbersix

Lifer
Jul 27, 2012
5,449
53
About 5 years of bulk
Foggy, how do you store these?
I've been concerned about storing bulk tobacco. I noticed that my aros have dried considerably in about 5-6 mos time even while sealed in mason jars (using caps). I wondered what an aro would be like if stored that way for 5 years...
I've heard some put a bit of wax on the lid to help keep it better sealed.

 

cigrmaster

Lifer
May 26, 2012
20,249
57,280
66
Sarasota Florida
As people have said above, some of us are stockpiling because we see a future of crippling prices and mass discontinuations of our favorite blends. Of course to a new pipe smoker 831 tins seems excessive, but when you break it down, it really is not.
If a person smokes 4 bowls a day, that equals 9 pounds a year approx, so a 2 bowl a day guy needs 4.5 pounds a year. If you want to smoke for 30 years then that is a lot of tobacco. 30 years from now, prices will be astronomical, hundreds of blends will have been discontinued, and I will be sitting on a gold mine. lol If I am dead then my kids will know what to do with my stash and they will make tons of money. Pipe tobacco believe it or not is a wise investment. I have been selling some 2002 stock that I paid 6.00 a tin for and getting 60.00 on some and at least 50 on the others, break it down and it is a better return than the SP 500, the DOW, any mutual fund.
To answer the OP's original question, I have approximately 100 pounds in the cellar. I have around 35 pounds of bulk and a little over 600 tins. Most of my favorites come in tins, only 4 of my favorites come in bulk.

 

rmbittner

Lifer
Dec 12, 2012
2,759
1,994
I am curious as to why you never buy bulk?
The short answer is that I just don't see the appeal. Personal preference.
For me, it's easier to cellar in the original tins than mess with dozens of mason jars. And, as Greg Pease noted in a recent "Ask Greg Pease" piece, there are differences. Even a bulk that you get "fresh" from a retailer is already going to taste different from the same blend in a similar-age tin due to the fact that simply bagging a tobacco results in a different sort of aging process than you get from something sealed up in an airtight tin. Some prefer the bulk-bagged variety; I don't.
I might feel differently if I only smoked several different blends. But my cellar now has close to 100 different blends. For me, tins just fit the bill better.
Bob

 

cigrmaster

Lifer
May 26, 2012
20,249
57,280
66
Sarasota Florida
bob makes a good point about blends being different than their tinned counter parts. I bought a pound of Hamborger Veermaster a few months ago, it was the first time I had ever bought it in bulk, I had always previously bought tins. I noticed a big difference, there were tons of broken flakes, lots of shake and it seemed most of it was a ribbon sort of cut. My tinned version is all nice flakes with no shake. The taste was hard to compare because I am smoking 11 year old stock from tins but the burning qualities I did not like. I decided to just buy the tinned version from now on and for go the bulked one. I know it is more money but it is not that big a difference when you break it down by the bowl.
The other 3 bulks that I buy that I could get in tins are SG Best Brown, FVF and St James flakes. I tried the tinned versions before I bought the bulks and when I compared the two, there was no difference in the quality of the flakes and how it tasted to me. I loaded up on all three. Buying the tins is also much more difficult except for the Best Brown, the FVF and St James are hardly ever in stock and when they are there are limits. I still bought 20 tins of the Best Brown just to have in the cellar and because at 8.95 a tin( JRcigars), I couldn't resist the price. lol

 
Aug 1, 2012
4,587
5,131
I have a bit over 2.5 pounds in jars and 6 tins. By Harris' estimate, that makes for about 2 years of stock.

 

deleon

Part of the Furniture Now
Nov 7, 2011
661
216
Texas
As far as i know I have about 4-5 pounds of bulk tobacco in 16 oz jars. 5 tins of Peterson's brands for starters

 

cleidophoros

Starting to Get Obsessed
Dec 12, 2012
118
0
This be my stash http://www.tobaccocellar.com/kleidophoros

3 lbs 8.9 oz total it seems.

 
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