To cellar or not to cellar?

I learned a lot from YouTube videos. People like to show off there stuff. I buy tins, cool dry place, no direct sunlight.

Check out a FAQ: http://pipe-club.com/tobacco_aging_faq/eng/

Copy and pasted these from an old post from @deathmetal form here http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/cellaring-questions-from-a-beginner#post-1152508
http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/cellaring

http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/samuel-gawith-tin-cellaring

http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/cellaring-tobaccos-best-practices

http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/tobacco-cellaring-question-and-possible-concern

http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/did-i-make-a-cellaring-mistake

http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/how-to-cellar-tobacco-properly

http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/cellaring-tobacco-1

http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/cellaring-vs-aging

http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/appropriate-jar-size

I'm also wanting to know what I can purchase and smoke right out of the tin, without finding out later that it would have been much better in a jar put away for a while.

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99% are ready to go when you buy them. Better later on is a wide open subject...

None of my 200+ pounds were bought to age, I'm hoarding for when it gets to the point that I can't afford it. Aging is just a perk of tobacco I haven't gotten around to smoking.

I've acquired a bit over 200 pounds since Jan 1 this year. I got to the game a bit late after sitting out for 10 years. I no more than started smoking pipe again in December only to hear about McClelland's pending shutdown and Dunhill's announcement. So I jumped on McClelland and Dunhill promptly.
I'm not a Latakia fan and of all the blends, it supposedly improves with age the least. I like Virginias the best and thankfully, they supposedly age the best. My cellar is a bit eclectic but it is primarily Virginia Flakes, VaPers and recently, VaBur and some Burley blends. Supposedly Burley doesn't improve much with age either although there seems to be some conflicting opinion on that. But my primary goal has been to build up inventory due to what I believe will be significant price increases and more difficult availability as we move forward.
I expect to be over 250 lb by the end of this year with my end goal now of 300 pounds. I'm 62 so theoretically, that would last me until I'm 91 if I somehow lived that long. Given some of the blends I like and don't have much depth in, it will more likely end up around 350 pounds.
Pipe tobacco isn't getting any cheaper or easier to obtain. If for some reason I have to quit or die, what I purchased will more than return my investment.

Reference to Hoosier Pipe, Our Government just announced a new tobacco tax increase for the coming year, wonder will they keep increasing taxes year after year which of course inevitably leads to arise of illegal tobacco imports, especially in the areas close to border-crossing entries.

wonder will they keep increasing taxes year after year

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No need to wonder. Count on it.

I've heard Virginias age the best and don't even try with most if not all aromatics because they don't hold the flavors very well. Same for blends with a lot of latakia. You can try to age them, but the latakia present is just going to fall off a good bit and possibly even get lost in the blend entirely, so if you find something with a good latakia presence, I don't think aging it would be great for your taste if the lat is why you love it.
Wow....200 lbs now, arriving at 350...whew, I couldn't imagine. If this was something I wanted, I couldn't at all right now. I'm still paying off debt as hard as I can go, so picking up tobacco for me is like a tin/month, and cellaring hardcore would pretty much mean buying the cheapest bulks I could find, not some of the stuff I like and enjoy more. Ah well, I'll just have to get through all my debts, then whatever is left of the tobacco world, I'll consider buying a bit of it.

I have read so many conflicting reports regarding Latakia and aging as to not know what to believe. Many have reported that 10+ yr old blends have gotten better with Latakia simply mellowing.

Shane and Brian covered cellaring tobacco really well in episode 275 of the radio show.
The general rule of thumb is that Virginias/Virginia-Perique blends age really well in that they get sweeter the more years they have on them. English blends will mellow out and that smokey punch the Latakia has softens as it ages. A lot of people say the key time for English blends is between the 5-8yr mark for aging. People have said that Burley doesn't really age much, but Shane is with some few that believe it just takes Burley a bit longer to age as he's had some 30yr old Edgeworth Ready Rubbed which in his opinion aged well in that it matured but still had those typical Burley notes.
I'm just getting into cellaring. Actually just checked on some last night and my oldest Escudo is from 2014 oldest Orlik Golden Sliced is from 2012. I'm mostly a Virginia/VaPer guy, so I've been stocking up on those. I've also been working on getting rid of the bigger plastic containers and shifting to the smaller glass mason jars for aging, so I have more room and I also learned that the plastic does tend to let outside air in and dry the leaf out after some time.
The part I found hardest about cellaring is what do you smoke and what do you store. I've gone with buying my favorites in sleeves of 5 tins at a time and bulks by the pound. I'll take one tin out to have now and store the other 4 for later. Next year it's the same thing order another 5 have 1 new store the other 4. For the bulks I'll break up the pound into 4oz increments roughly. I'll have one jar now and leave the other 3 to age for later. The other thing I need to do is get through the jars I have where I opened a tin and had some of it then jarred it up to have later and I haven't gotten around to later yet.

26 USC 5701(f) sets pipe tobacco tax at about $2.83 per pound. My understanding is that HR 729 ( Tobacco Excise Tax and Parity Act of 2017) is a pending bill that would kick up the pipe tobacco tax to a whopping $48.08 per pound! However, it seems highly unlikely to pass (see the "3% likely"):
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hr729
Even so, I essentially agree with Hoosier that tobacco certainly won't be getting any cheaper, that it probably will get more expensive, and also that the regulatory environment is putting a big damper on things as well, possibly driving some producers out of the market (like McClelland)

I have read so many conflicting reports regarding Latakia and aging as to not know what to believe. Many have reported that 10+ yr old blends have gotten better with Latakia simply mellowing.

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Yeah, it’s dangerous territory for sure. I don’t think there are many folks that dispute leaf needs to age to reach its potential, rather the question is who should do the aging. In the past blends were created to be consumed upon arrival and were adequately aged prior to sale. I have a book on tobacco in America that has an advert for a Va blender that aged their leaf for 7 years in casks prior to blending.
To your question, the answer really depends on the blend, ime. Lat looses potency as it ages while the va base becomes richer, deeper and sweeter trading a top end sparkle for darker notes. If this is an improvement comes down to your own tastes. I don’t think there is an objective answer. Well, aside from one, which is simply buy stuff you like now.
To the OP a suggestion- “what suits you” is a moving target when you are starting out, and sometimes it never gets easy as tastes can change so quickly in the pipe realm. I think you’ll do yourself the most good by looking at this time as an exploratory phase. Identify what really interests you then build a cellar as a consequence of those decisions. That way you’ll be happy to smoke what you have regardless of whether a blend improves over time.
You might find Greg Pease’s notes on cellaring interesting. He is one of the guys often credited with bringing the practice in to the light, but there were a few guys advocating for it a decade before. Anyway, you can find his thoughts in his FAQ, just scroll to the bottom or put “improve with age” in your page search bar.

https://www.glpease.com/FAQ.html

Chapter and verse is in the earlier posts. My flip answer, a short folklore synopsis, is that Virginia improves with age on over a decade. Burley keeps really well and may improve some with age, but not like Virginia. Latakia mellows, but if you age a Lat blend, it may fade fairly quickly after opening, so smoke it up (this is my experience, less folklore here). Now into pure impressions -- aromatics can lose their flavor, but if the base tobacco is good, sometimes this is a good thing. That's all I know. Now refer back to the expertise above, and maybe below after me.

I was lucky. 4 years ago nobody was buying aged stuff on EBAY. I picked a a ton (50-100) old cans for a small premium over retail. I was regularly buying early 2000's CC for around 25-30$ for 100g. Prices were low (comparatively). Built my aged collection first to a point where I was all set up, and then I went after purchasing in bulk to cellar. I have been smoking old stuff for years and years before I have to even touch my actual cellar. I didn't have to pay huge premiums for the old stuff and now I have accumulated 30 or so lbs of stuff to age. Going forward I will probably buy 5-10 lbs or so a year and just keep layering it in so it doesn't turn to shitdust.

The following is an accurate expression of the consensus about blends aging among those of us who started cellaring in the 1980's.
"Natural products, free of chemical additives and preservatives, change and mature with age. Tobacco is no exception and this is especially true of virginia tobacco which has a high sugar content. Initially sharp and biting, virginia tobacco will mellow and sweeten over decades. Oriental tobaccos will also evolve in time, most notably latakia, traditionally the most desirable of aged tin tobacco, which will both soften and grow more pungent. On the other hand some tobaccos, such as burley will not change appreciably with age. [I suspect that the aging of tobaccos treated with chemical additives and/or preservatives is effected in two ways. First, preservatives will retard the aging process. Second, the chemicals and the tobaccos will neither uniformly age nor maintain the original balance of flavors. Personal experiences leads me to believe that for at least the first decade the chemical component becomes more noticeable as the years go by. For these reasons I generally avoid 'cellering' of chemically treated or preserved tobaccos and tend to believe the manufacturers of those blends when they state that their blends are best smoked shortly after purchase.] Since English blends are invariably based on virginia or virginia and oriental tobaccos and rarely use burley tobaccos, a tin of traditionally blended English tobacco will evolve for decades. [It is important to note that this is true not only for English 'virginia' and 'latakia' blends but also for English cavendish and matured press flake or roll blends. While these latter blends invariably contain natural additives, traditionally, unlike 'non english' blends of similar name, that use was very limited and the tobaccos used were of the highest quality virginias as opposed to burleys or low grade leaf.];"
John Loring article link
Tobacco processed today may or may not behave this way. More flavorings and fragrances, fewer blenders able to work with raw leaf as opposed to cigarette strip, etc make me agnostic as to the degree of improvement, Tobacco remains an agricultural product that will change over time. Will it improve? I hope so. A lot? I just don't know. But other reasons to cellar are over whelming

To cellar or not to cellar, that is the question. There is no correct answer.
Let's start with cellaring as a hedge against increased costs. That's probably the best argument for cellaring there is, closely followed by hedging against the disappearance of favorite blends. A lot of blends are going off the market in a couple of years due to FDA regulations. The quality of the leaf and the manner in which it is harvested and processed appears to be lowering due to the loss of price supports. Farmers are turning to more profitable crops.
So why not just pile in and buy a ton of the stuff?
No reason not to if you know that you really love what you're buying. But if you're fairly new at this you may find yourself with a pile of tobacco you may later find that don't like. You might be able to trade for other tobaccos or sell off some of it, so there's that, but you still may not get your money back.
I bought only what I really enjoyed smoking, and have enjoyed smoking for years. Even so, my tastes shift. I have tobaccos that I currently don't feel like smoking that were favorites just a few years ago.
Or you might be one of these guys with 400 lbs in the closet who suddenly croaks out on the squash court. Ooops. The widow and orphans are stuck with a pile of weed and it goes in the dumpster if you haven't left instructions on how to dispose of it.
So think about your needs before you start spending.
Onto the benefits of aging. Aging doesn't improve tobaccos. That's bullshit spin. Tobaccos change while aging. Whether that change represents an improvement is up to the taste of the individual smoker. There are blends that I like with a few years on them and others that I really prefer fresh. Years ago, blends went through extensive aging before being released for sale. Nowadays many blends don't get that long gestation period. But most blenders would say that their product is ready to be consumed when released. A couple of years ago Robert Germain stated that aging their product was pointless as it's ready to be consumed upon release. Of course, they're a very old school blender.
As has been said before, Virginias become sweeter, though not all of them, over the years and they can go for 50-60 years before they peak and fade. Yes Virginia, tobaccos, like everything else on the planet, have a shelf life. Besides the sweetening, their other flavors can become a bit fuller and rounder. I'm saying can, because not every Virginia changes equally with aging. Some of that may have to do with the conditions under which the tobacco is being stored.
Burley seems to be the aging champion. I've smoked blends nearly 100 years old when the only clear note left in that zombie vomit was the burley. It can get a little bit sweeter with a more pronounced nut like flavor. It's just not going to exhibit as much of a change as do Virginias.
The various Orientals seem to age very well for decades, with their flavors becoming a little more pronounced over time.
Latakias fade, or to put it in more politically correct terms, they "soften". That smokiness is a process, not the base character of the leaf, so it fades over time. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, as many smokers prefer the "softened" flavors of aged Latakia. My experience with them is that they can hold up just fine for the first decade or so before they exhibit any noticeable fading. Up to 20+ years that fading continues on a gentle path and by 35+ years that smoky flavor is nearly or completely gone.
And there are always exceptions because a major part of the cellaring process are the conditions under which the tobacco is stored. Ideally it's stored in a cool dark dry environment. If it isn't, aging may be somewhat less than optimal.
So the other part about cellaring is protecting your investment. Modern tins are fine for short to medium term, as in up to 7 years, maybe 10. But tins, especially the square and rectangular pressure sealed tins, fail over time. This can be a concern if you've mortgaged the house to buy a 400 year supply of tobacco. It's probably because they're not really completely sealed and are leaking from the get go. So you need to seal up the tins so that they don't eventually dry out when the seal fails, if you're going to keep your tobacco in the tin for more than 7 years. A lot of people heat seal their tins in heavy duty food storage grade Mylar. Others jar their tobacco in mason jars.
I've smoked a fair amount of vintage tobacco. Some of it has been marvelous. Some of it has turned to crap. Buying vintage tins on the secondary market is something of a gamble. As long as you know that you're taking a risk you have no complaint. Personally I've decided not to buy any more vintage tins of tobacco, unless they're being sold at discount. I'll be happy to pay $3 - $4 for a 1970's tin of 759.
If you know what you like to smoke, by all means buy some extra to put away. It's nice to be able to smoke what you want when you want it. If you're still exploring, don't buy out of panic, take some time to find out what you like.