End of Dunhill Tobaccos

gnarlybriar · Mar 6, 2017

Does anyone have any idea of when the last will be produced/available in the US?
What a damn shame that BAT would think of killing off a world-wide seller, for generations of pipe smokers. They have enough revenue to have a small section that doesn't make extreme profits quickly.

cosmicfolklore · Mar 6, 2017

According to the distributor that I talked to at The Briary's Pipe Event, "Dunhill" is not even a company anymore. There are no family left, and the name is owned by a conglomerate. Dunhill pipes is no longer. For the last few years, they have been produced by a company renamed Alfred Dunhill's White Spot. And, the tobacco is owned by the producers of that tobacco. The name is just leased out to different companies, like colognes, luggage, etc... the company that leases the name could care less about what these folks do with the name. I can only speculate, but exactly why the tobacco producers want to get out of the game, but I suspect that, yeh, they could care less.

BTW, the new pipes are now labeled as "Alfred Dunhills White Spot."

stickframer · Mar 6, 2017

I've heard the tobacco will be available for about 18 more months.
Edit: there was a thread not too long ago that went into more detail.

cosmicfolklore · Mar 6, 2017

I didn't close, because the other thread had scrolled off the page already. Maybe someone will have an exact date. But, yeh, I was thinking that it was over a year. You've got time.,

sablebrush52 · Mar 6, 2017

The quote was 12 to 18 months.

snoopy311 · Mar 6, 2017

Edited by a moderator ~Cosmic

No politics

jpmcwjr · Mar 6, 2017

Please, no feckin' politics, or swearing, for that matter.
There are a ton of US blends that are as good as, or better, than the fading Dunhill marque.

davet · Mar 6, 2017

Please, no feckin' politics

+1 Great way to end a thread .....

fnord · Mar 7, 2017

I'm still a disbeliever at this point.
Dunhill, sadly, is one of the grandest merchandising whores in the business. (The silly shit I've seen down through the years sporting the Dunhill marque is mind boggling.) Their tartan (The Dunhill plaid is a tartan, right?) is universally recognized and the name alone resonates. It makes no business sense whatsoever that longstanding brand names will be shelved or binned.
Cigarettes, pipe tobacco or cigars, it doesn't matter. No company's exit strategy would merely walk away from such a name brand revenue stream.
For the record, I'm most certainly not a member of the Flat Earth Society.
Fnord

jvnshr · Mar 7, 2017

There are a ton of US blends that are as good as, or better, than the fading Dunhill marque.

Sure there is, but sometimes you just want to drink Corona instead of a boutique beer. I've always thought that Dunhill will not disappear from the market, so never thought about cellaring it.

kiel · Mar 7, 2017

Whether is stays or goes I will probably still cellar a few. I recently tried a five year old 965 and it wasn't bad at all, much better than my first time trying it (fresh). Standard Mixture was a win for me so that will be added. There are so many virginia flakes out there to choose from, but cellaring Light and Dark Flake is probably in store too because why the hell not.

aimlesswanderer · Mar 7, 2017

Thankfully I never tried 'em. Can't miss what I never knew.

seagullplayer · Mar 7, 2017

Should they go then five years from now everyone will carry on about how great the blends where.
And in ten years they will have been the stuff of dragons and unicorns...
And if someone picks up the name, people will talk about how they are just not as good as the original...
Cause that's just what we do.

jvnshr · Mar 7, 2017

Should they go then five years from now everyone will carry on about how great the blends where.
And in ten years they will have been the stuff of dragons and unicorns...
And if someone picks up the name, people will talk about how they are just not as good as the original...
Cause that's just what we do.

:D

mawnansmiff · Mar 7, 2017

I suspect the ~~unscrupulous~~ entrepreneurial hoarders will be stocking up on all their blends now hoping to make a killing further down the line when the stuff becomes as rare as rocking horse droppings :roll:
Regards,
Jay.

iamn8 · Mar 7, 2017

The day it's all gone will be a profoundly sad day. The implications of the biggest of the big being pulled are vast, far reaching. I don't think it's hit us yet just how major this is for us all, and not just for those of us who love Dunhill tobacco. I think we're kidding ourselves.

We can argue the analogy, but this is as though BMW or Mercedes suddenly announced they're getting out of the car business, insomuch as it doesn't exactly instill confidence in the future of the marketplace.

cosmicfolklore · Mar 7, 2017

Well, with the way the FDA is handling the deeming date and existing brands, seeing the Dunhill name go down probably has some companies with deep pockets looking to add Dunhill to its tobacco line-up. Of course this is just wishful thinking, but it's a brand with a following, it's already on the market, and it has great branding. The only catch I could see is that when Dunhill pulled out of the US back in 2007-9(not sure of exact date) it may not be considered a brand that meets the FDA deeming date qualifications.

This is why we have so many blends that are replacements. The whole Brigham tobacco line was made to replace the Dunhill blends that were no longer available in the US, plus a whole bunch of other companies made lookalikes as well.

mso489 · Mar 7, 2017

I'm a wild-eyed optimist, but I think the Dunhill pipe tobacco brand will get sold to one of the relatively larger blenders with enough cash to make it worthwhile for the current corporate owners of the name (used in relation to the blends). Maybe Sutliff will buy it just to goad the anti-Sutliff folks. Branding is so much of marketing. The blends would have to remain as they are for sales and perhaps for FDA hassle, but that would be part of the sale. Not being a student of the tobacco business, I may not grasp the situation that would liquidate the brand for all time. You can't buy a new Studebaker these days, though they were first in the market with good and popular electric cars about one hundred years ago (remember them?). Tesla's a boring johnny-come-lately. My great aunts were tooling around a Chicago suburb in their Studebaker electric in 1922.

sablebrush52 · Mar 7, 2017

Clearly BAT didn't think that sales of Dunhill tobaccos were worth continuing. Someone might buy name rights, but as the blends were off the US market after Feb 15th 2007, they're a dead duck anyways. It's curious how the timeline for ending US distribution coincides closely with the date that the FDA final ruling would have forced BAT to either put up, or shut up.
Buy 'em while you can. As has been noted, they will become the stuff of legend and you can gouge the hell out of your fellow pipers.

michaelmirza · Mar 7, 2017

I'm visiting the forums for the first time in a while, and the search function remains nearly impossible to use. Can someone please link to the original thread about this? I had not heard this news.

End of Dunhill Tobaccos

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