Sobranie in Stock...

This is the first I've heard of this retailer.

Never heard of them either and it lets you put in 1000 tins. You all have at it.

This is the part where people chime in about how it sucks and isn't the same, X is better, about how X is more like X than X

Has anyone had the H&H match blends? I never had the original Sobranie blends, but this new one doesn't do it for me.

It sucks and it isn't the same. WhiteKnight is better, much closer to the Balkan Sobranie of old than the stink weed Germain's is producing.
OK, my work here is done.

@Sable, So White Knight is a close duplication in your opinion? I have never had Balkan Sobranie so I’m looking for your expertise with this question? Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks.

Whiteknight is the shizz... crap, I hope shizz means really good. Do the kids still say that? ::

It's what we expect the best Balkan ever made to taste like.

@Sable, So White Knight is a close duplication in your opinion? I have never had Balkan Sobranie so I’m looking for your expertise with this question? Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks.

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All of the following is one man's opinion. I used to smoke Balkan Sobranie in the 1970's and '80's. I quit smoking pipes for awhile and when I came back to it I wasn't smoking English/Balkan blends so I wasn't really aware of what was up with Balkan Sobranie or that it had gone out of production.
Fast forward to the big announcement in 2011 (or 2012?) that Balkan Sobranie will be back on the market blended by Germain's. I bought 10 tins of it, excited to reacquaint myself with an old friend. I remember packing the first bowl, lighting up, and thinking "WTF??!!" because it tasted ugly and not at all like I remembered.
I don't remember how I first became aware of WhiteKnight, but I decided to try it and a few other Balkan Sobranie matches. There was something in WhileKnight that sparked that sense memory in a way that the others did not. It's not the same recipe, which makes sense as crops change. It's as close to the flavor as Russ Ouellette (who absolutely loved Balkan Sobranie and smoked it regularly) could make it using available components.
I got to ABC test WhiteKnight against some 35 year old Sobrainie stock and a tin of Germain's version a couple of years back and satisfied myself that WhiteKnight was considerably closer than the Germain's product. I don't care that Germain's has the recipe, the name, and the tin art. It doesn't have the flavor.
My stack of Germain's BS is still sitting on a shelf. I may try adding some high quality 10 year aged yenidje blending stock to it to see if I can make it more palatable.
I've also stocked up on WhiteKnight and am letting that age a bit.
Hope this helps.

Fast forward to the big announcement in 2011 (or 2012?) that Balkan Sobranie will be back on the market blended by Germain's.

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I picked up a couple tins in 2012. The tins were different than the ones that I picked up 2014-Present. The tins had an iridescence to them and the labels looked slightly different. I remember smoking some of it and letting them go in a trade because I didn't enjoy it. Fast forward to 2014 when I decided to pick up a couple tins, for one reason or another, and it seemed different to me. The tins did not have the same iridescence and the tobacco tasted really good to me. I may be imagining all of this, but still believe that there have been two runs (versions) of Sobranie since it's come back and that the second run is better than the first. I'm yet to find anyone else who's experienced this, and I may be dreaming it up, I'm not sure?
Sable, maybe we should do an experiment and see if I'm dreaming this up. It sounds like you still have some of the 2012 stuff, and I have some of the more recent stuff. PM me if you want to trade 1:1 to see if there are differences?

The first version's label had 'The' printed smaller than Balkan Sobranie and the second version had 'The' printed the same size as Balkan Sobranie, and the first version tins were a light gold color and the second version tins were brass colored. The contents of those first tins was kind of bland and flat, and the contents of the second tins was way better and had that snap and scent I had always read about. At least this was my experience, but I never hear any mention of it.
If you Google image search Balkan Sobranie, compare the first picture from tobacco reviews with the fifth picture from pipes and cigars, you can see what I'm referring to as to the differences in the 'The'. Those pictures don't give a good idea of the light gold vs. brass color of the tins though. Although, this is the case too.

You're probably on to something there, although I will guess that you may have your description of the sizes backwards, as the pics that have the bigger "THE" I know have been around for a long time, and newer pics show the "THE" being smaller, and fresh tins coming from a few different places have also had the smaller "THE", and I have not actually come across any with the larger type. I think that any brass/gold-colored tin could look green in some photos, perhaps that is where that idea came from.

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You're right. I did confuse the two. I still think there have been two versions since the re-release with the second version (small 'The') being the better of the two. In fact, I would almost bet on it, and I'm not a gambling man. ::

The new BS is a horrid blend. I don't see what all the hype is.
White Knight and GLP's Rennaisance (the old stuff) are my top 2.

The new BS is a horrid blend. I don't see what all the hype is.

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There is no hype, and many members on the forum share your same sentiment. Thanks for sharing your opinion too though, as it's always good to hear from someone else who doesn't like it.

When I see a thread where a fellow member has been nice enough to alert fellow members of a hard to find blend being in stock... who reads that and thinks "I should let them know I hate it"?

We are pipesmokers, Nate, we grumble. It seems to be expected. ::

Never heard of them either and it lets you put in 1000 tins. You all have at it.

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After reading my statement above I just wanted to clarify that the statement refers to the site and not the blend. When a site lets you put in 1000 tins something is amiss.