Sealed Tins on Oi Vay ?

It's a year ahead of whatever you buy right now. The prices I've seen them go for aren't too bad, just a tad more than current pricing in a B&M. That being said, I'll buy two or three tins for the same price and just wait it out myself.

Disposable income, brother. If I had more of it, I'd give the cellar age a boost with it. I've put over $100 worth of new tobacco in it that I can't even smoke.

I think that some people see that a tin is on eBay and immediately think it must be scarce, otherwise, why would someone have posted up a tin, that in all likelihood has no more age than what is on the shelf at your local B&M. I agree with you, that if the tobacco has been discontinued or if it has some significant age 10+ years, then maybe you gamble on a tin, but I think that buying tins that are still relatively easy to get with one or two years age on them is....shall we say, for those who have more money than sense!

I'm guilty of paying above retail for a tin that has a few years of age on it, especially if its something I have not tried before. In a few cases maybe double retail for a tin that has a few years on it, but that is about my limit.

I am sure the taste of squadron Leader has not changed or improved in the last 18 months

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Perhaps this is your experience, but it is not mine, so I will continue to pay slightly above market for 1-2 year old tins because to me they taste better, even English blends.

I'm content to let the stuff age. But if I wanted to gamble on someone else actually cellaring that mystery tin properly and wanted to do an A-B comparison, I would buy an aged tin. However, the huge sums spent on superannuated tobaccos from your fathers' yesteryear are fad and the power of suggestion. Tobacco peaks and fades. With this 30-50 year old stuff you're pretty much smoking ghosts and shadows with your imagination filling in what ain't there.

With this 30-50 year old stuff you're pretty much smoking ghosts and shadows with your imagination filling in what ain't there.

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Is your opinion based on direct experience of tasting numerous 30-50 year old tins ? I have no informed opinion on this as the oldest tobacco I have smoked was about 22 years old and I thought it was wonderful.

Is your opinion based on direct experience of tasting numerous 30-50 year old tins ? I have no informed opinion on this as the oldest tobacco I have smoked was about 22 years old and I thought it was wonderful.

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Yes, it is, unless by numerous, you mean hundreds, then no. But a couple of dozen. What I have noticed is that the individual flavors of the constituent tobaccos have merged into a single flavor, and that that flavor can be very faint. If the tobacco sits out for any length of time, the remnant fades even more.

A couple dozen is a pretty valid sample set in my book. If you had said one or two I would be squirming in my seat. Were there any that you thought were worth it ?

They weren't bad, per se, just faint. A couple were rather flat almost like smoking cardboard. Nothing that I would go out of my way to spend money on. I don't believe that this stuff was intended to sit around for years and years. When I was smoking 35-40 years ago, I never heard of anyone aging their tobacco. You bought it and you smoked it. It wasn't like there was a supply problem back then, or a shortage of good tobacconists from which to buy more.

Same with cigars. I've enjoyed some very tasty cigars with 20 or so years on them. But the few Pre-Castro cigars that I've been given over the years have been, let me say in the kindest possible terms, crap.

Wines, which are meant to be aged, peak. And then they fade...fade...fade. Every now and then you do run into a Dorian Gray, but that's the exception, not the rule.

With the exception of fortified wines, which can mellow for decades, it seems that 30 years is the upper limit for aging, with most things starting to go poof earlier.