Has the McClelland eBay Madness Ended?

No it hasn't ended. We've just accepted it as the new normal and quit caring :lol:

McClelland’s?

It's subsided a bit. For giggles, I started tracking prices when the madness began and people were shelling out $150 for a tin for just about anything McClelland. Now it's much more selective. Certain blends, like Tudor Castle, Blackwoods Flake, the older Christmas Cheers, and several others, are still getting respectable prices, though much reduced from the high point. Most of the Frogs, the Numbers, and the 40th, are settling in at around $25 to $40 for 50 grams, and $50 to $65 for 100 grams. And there's a lot of variation in the final bid price. The same blend may sell for $30 at one auction, $45 at another, and $23 at still another, on the same day. A lot of really highly priced McClellands posted by the more rapacious sellers are now going unsold. As long as buyers are willing to pay these prices, these will be the prices.
So much for Milton Friedman and the neo classical school of economics. Especially with something like the Christmas Cheers, there's little rational about it. A 2004 Christmas Cheer was just as extinct a blend before McClelland closed it's doors as after, but the price is suddenly up about 50%.
The number of listings has dropped from a high of over 400 a day to the upper 200's.
We'll see where it is in another few months, but, barring another financial meltdown, I don't expect it to move much lower.
Then see where it is in 5 years after a lot of it has been smoked up.

A buddy of mine owned a liquor shop and there was a particular whisky by a little known producer he recommended (at $70 per bottle)... and people kept turning their nose up at it.

A few years later that particular whisky won a significant award - and he couldn't keep it on the shelves.... even at $200. Its now over $350.

The same people who scoffed at it were the ones chasing it like it was gold.

Even varieties of whisky by the same producer, that had not won any awards, were being bought up as soon as they hit the shelves at inflated prices.

People are strange...

If those prices keep going up, or stay high, I might do something desperate like open a tin of mine and smoke it.

What is considered madness? 4-10x retail in one week, yea that's madness. I don't think you will ever see any of their top 20 blends average less than 3x retail again. I think the madness is over and @3x retail is the new normal.

Judging by the sustained and ever-growing Esoterica madness over quite a few years now, I'm guessing it will not subside with McC. Especially considering they're all discontinued.

McClelland is a Dynasty that will never end! Superior tobacco aged the correct way.

I've purchased a tin or two on there. Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to try some of the better blends when they were still around. I'm eyeing grabbing one of the Royal Cajun series next. Crazy this stuff was $10 a tin before.

If those prices keep going up, or stay high, I might do something desperate like open a tin of mine and smoke it.

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:clap:
Smoke it and move on.

Crazy this stuff was $10 a tin before.

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Yes, and considering the work that went into making these blends they were clearly underpriced. Once the subsidies that supported the laborious processes was removed they were doomed. McClelland could have continued had they raised their prices to cover the hand picking and traditional methodology their products required. It was a premium product.

So there is a little bit of a plateau now?

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At least with eBay, with what I'm seeing, it appears to be the case at roughly 3 to 4 times retail. Some expect that to rise to 10x to 20x in a decade or so. Or it could be 0 in a decade or so.

I suspect they will fall a little more then steadily climb as time goes on and peoples supply gets lower. Or if ebay stops selling tobacco again, who knows...

Yes, and considering the work that went into making these blends they were clearly underpriced. Once the subsidies that supported the laborious processes was removed they were doomed.

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Or put another way, when the inflation is unmasked (by removing the subsidies) it reveals how little value federal reserve notes actually have.

I suspect they will fall a little more then steadily climb as time goes on and peoples supply gets lower. Or if ebay stops selling tobacco again, who knows...

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eBay never started selling tobaccos again. Technically all of these listings are in violation of eBay policy, all of which proves that eBay's enforcement of their policies is a joke. Sellers do run the risk of getting kicked off of eBay, and they would have no recourse if a buyer filed a complaint and demanded their money back since, technically, the sale was illegal.

I checked out the ebay sales(sold) and they are negligible to the amount of actual Mcclelland sold in the past few months. I think most is sitting with the kind of people who post here. Basically people wanting to have enough for the future. I definitely don't have enough but there are way too many great blends out there for me to pay huge prices for MCc. Esoterica is probably even more out of whack.