I buy strictly online since around 2008 which was when the state of Florida put an 85% tax on the wholesale price of pipe tobacco. I had a great local store called Benningtons's that has been around forever. I qould goo in at least a couple times a week sometimes more. I never thought about cellaring as he had a great inventory and I could walk in any day pick up some Penzance for about 5 bucks a tin and he never ran out. Once the tax hit a 9.75 tin of SG Best Brown Flake went to 22 dollars and change. I never bought another tin in Florida and I began thinking maybe I should be stocking up. I knew about SP,,PC,4Noggins, and many more tobacconists. I started slowly buy trying all different types to figure out what I should stock up on. The word cellaring wasn't anything I used. I wasn't in any hurry until 2012.
I think that was when the state of Washington put a ban on ordering tobacco over the internet. That did it for me. I vowed to never run out of one of my favorites so I gave myself 1 year to buy 20-25 years of tobacco.
When I told people what I was doing most called me a paranoid fool who will just loose money buying things I will eventually hate.
I was fine with people talking like that as it kept my favorites in stock and easy to get. There were rarely any limits on how many you could buy in a day, most were 20-25 a day. I had no problems ordering 25 tins 4-5 days in a row. Towards the end of my journey many of my favorites were now hard to find. Specifically John Aylesbury Luxury Flake, all of a sudden no one had any. Another was Wessex Brown flake. I was just finishing so I wasn't worried about filling in on a couple to a few different blends. The hard to find big names I had covered with 12-14 pounds each. Stonehaven, Samuel Gawith Best Brown, Full Virginia and St James Flakes all were at least a dozen pounds each. I got most from small mom and pop stores. I only got maybe 3-4 bags of hard to get from the big guys. I went small and it paid off big time as people were giddy when I would call and order in 5 pound lots. One guy even gave me a 10% discount on the SG blends.
I reached my goal before December 18, as that is my birthday and I wanted to give myself a nice present.
My celler which I thought was complete was not totally done as I foolishly tried a few blends that jiminks told me I would love. So I loaded up on Curly Block, Salty Dogs, Butera Dark Stoved( I went 140 tins deep) which is pretty much the same as McClelland Dark Star.
Then I went pretty short on around 25 tins of 2013 Capstan RR that SP had found in a back room somewhere and then lastly I went for the Savinelli Doblone d'Oro. The price was cheap, 15.36 for 100 gram tins. I bought about 35 of those.
That was a couple of years ago and the only thing I have bought have been aged tins of one of my favorites. these tins are from 1997,98,2004,2005,2006. They are the only things I have bought at a price I considered to be fair as they were all 100 gram tins.
My plan was a success. Two of my favorites were discontinued with no warning and I had plenty as I knew one was definitely going down but the other surprised me.
It has been a heck of a journey but it was fun chasing down some of the hard to gets and being successful. I began posting my list when people wanted ideas of what other people were smoking. After a few of these postings I had a few guys ask me too stop posting it as it was creating shortages. I said sure no problem and I was kind of amazed that people looked at my list enough to create shortages.
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