The question about "supply and demand" gets asked all the time. But the thing is that pipe tobacco is such a small market, it simply doesn't function the same way as other, much-larger industries. In the case of Pelican, Kingfisher, et al., they are produced by J.F. Germain, the same company that produces the Esoterica blends as well as the blends released under their own name. They use very old-fashioned -- not to mention just plain old and historic -- hand-operated machinery and they have a very small staff. And even though their tobaccos are highly sought-after, they aren't consumed in the same quantities as, say, a Lane or Stokkebye or MacBaren blend. They aren't going to add expensive machinery and staff when the odds are their market is actually going to decrease over time.
And, then, of course, it's easy to forget that tobacco is an agricultural crop. It changes from year to year -- sometimes dramatically. And sometimes certain leaf isn't even on the market. So, to guard against those variables, you either have to buy and warehouse large and expensive quantities of leaf. . . or you release limited quantities of blends when you have the tobacco on hand to do so. (I'm not saying Germain doesn't warehouse anything. But I don't see a company of their size having anything like the stockpiles that you'd find at, say, MacBaren or McClelland. I mean, MacBaren has leaf that is *decades* old!)
Bob
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