4noggins Selling Consignment Tobacco

[sablebrush52]

Another angle is not to blame the people selling, but too blame the people buying tobacco on eBay. There is an opinion out there that if people quit paying the inflated prices on eBay, sellers will quit selling

The opinion isn't that people would stop selling, but that prices would be lower. Buyers set the price, not sellers. With any market, an item is worth what someone is willing to pay for it, not what someone is asking for it. If buyers want lower prices all they need to do is to decline to pay high prices. But as there are always people willing to pay high prices for something hard to find, or out of production, those will continue to be the prices asked. If these prices are a wound, it is a self inflicted one, especially where the item is not a necessity, but a luxury.
All of this secondary market action is a fairly new phenomenon. Whether it continues, or turns into another tulip mania remains to be seen.

 

[whiteburleydude]

I checked eBay a few minutes ago. At the moment there are 2 tins of Penzance for sale. The idea that a few tins on eBay is what makes Penzance rare is unrealistic. That leads into the subject of pipe tobacco hoarding. I won't go there though. 8O

 

[pipebuddy]

My comment goes at par with Doc Hudson's. Prices are what they are because people accept to pay for them. So why would the merchants ask for anything lower? If people accept to pay those prices, then why is it that there's a big deal made about it?

Even here, I have seen McClelland tins sold at crazy prices; and that's when McClelland's body is not even cold yet. But people choose to buy them. It's their own privilege to do so.

If people want to see the prices lowered, well then, stop buying them at these prices for a while. As long as one accepts to pay these prices, prices will keep going up. :wink:

 

[ashdigger]

Whiteburleydude, you seem pretty emotionally invested in this. Were you involved in a sale that went sideways? I'm curious why you care enough to call out other for "free rides"? I personally don't give a shit and think this whole thread is hysterical and very telling about the pettiness of certain people. Here's a helpful tip..... if this applies to you....don't let envy rule your life.

 

[maker]

hehe

 

[piperay70]

Greed is a awful thing. Profit is everything. Sometimes I give away tobacco for free. Once gave away a Stanwell's Danske Club Bulldog and two tins of tobacco for young fella who was keen to learn pipe smoking. 10 years has passed and his collecting and smoking pipes. People should be more open and polite, not just think so about themselves and their own wealth. 4noggins has sometimes terribly tag on the old tins. It's business and the owner wants make a dollar or two...but there's common decency in everything.

-Ernie

 

[peckinpahhombre]

Greed is a awful thing.

Why do you say that? Just what is greed exactly?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A

 

[sablebrush52]

Well, there are some aspects to this "gold bush" that I don't like, a sort of distortion ripple that flows out from it, sucking some of the simple pleasure out of smoking a pipe. Specifically more and more people feeling less and less okay about smoking a tin something they like and put away to enjoy because suddenly it's worth a bit of money. It's like they feel guilty about smoking it somehow, like they're not deserving, or they're being extravagant if they smoke it because their $9 tin of Crapola is worth $90 to some schmuck on eBay or Reddit. Now they have a conflict borne of mankind's favorite thing, an unearned advantage, and they can't just pop that tin of Crapola and smoke it up. And I get that it's their problem, not mine, but I deal with business all the time and like some things just to be pleasurable escapes and this issue intrudes more and more. Trust me, I'll get inured to it, but in the meantime...

 

[cigrmaster]

maker, too freaking funny. I love the scene.
Ernie, where are you from? It looks like English is not your first language. I ask this because you seem to be offended at how American business works.

 

[cigrmaster]

Peck, that was a great clip. Everyone who doesn't like the American way, watch that clip that peck posted.

 

[sablebrush52]

The idea that a few tins on eBay is what makes Penzance rare is unrealistic.

That's true. What make it more realistic is that people rarely find it in stock. Germain's produces a lot of product, of which Penzance is but one. And since Penzance assumed its lofty status in the early 2000's after Germain's unexpectedly missed a few shipments, causing a panic, it's been a hoarder's delight. So the demand far outstrips the supply, which BTW, isn't the case with McClelland.

Peck, that was a great clip. Everyone who doesn't like the American way, watch that clip that peck posted

Except that Friedman was a glib polemicist who was wrong as much as he was right. But he's an entertaining glib polemicist. And Henry Ford, one of Friedman's exemplars in this clip, went against the principles of his entrepeneurial colleagues by raising pay rates for his workers above those of his competitors. You have to spread the manure around or you can't grow anything. But that's another topic.

 

[balkisobrains]

Price seems to be more than but a number to the one with under a hundred posts complaining about others getting free passes. Meanwhile he's got his own stealth WTT thread riding in the general pipe smoking discussion forum. =)

 

[peckinpahhombre]

Except that Friedman was a glib polemicist who was wrong as much as he was right.

We will have to disagree on that one. I think he was a man whose ideas have become even more prescient and resilient with time. Friedman himself was asked the very same question about Henry Ford and responded:

McClaughry: Didn’t Henry Ford hire his production workers at twice the going rate?
Friedman: He did that because he could make more money that way. In that way, he got more efficient, more productive workers. He was trying to attract people to Detroit where he was building cars—particularly people from the South. At that time, Ford announced the $5 daily wage, twice the going wage. But he didn’t do it to discharge social responsibility. As Adam Smith said, “You do not owe your daily bread to the beneficence of the baker, but to his desire to pursue his own interest.”

The point is that greed is nothing more than self interest. In business, that self interest is to make money.

 

[rmpeeps]

Re: Pipestud getting a free pass
Not even accurate.

Steve has certainly worked his ass off for all he gets. He’s run his site for 12 years and provides nothing but fantastic service, both for people wanting to have an outlet and for buyers to get an honest deal.

Though his site is a mere 12 years old, he’s been “on the radar” of the pipesmoking community much longer than that. I could be mistaken, I’m old, but I’m pretty sure he first caught my attention back in about ‘98-‘99.

Steve’s offers are priced to sell, move, and hopefully fill a hole in a pipesmoker’s life.

Does he hit the occasional homerun? Absolutely. That’s the way of any business.

All I can offer Steve is my sincere appreciation (and the occasional chance for him to find a home for an old blend I’m not gonna smoke!)

 

[admiral]

Not only that - Steve is not buying tins with intention to resell dearly afterwards on his site.

 

[sablebrush52]

The point is that greed is nothing more than self interest. In business, that self interest is to make money.

Absolutely. But there is such a thing as enlightened self interest. Ford raised rates for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the realization that if people couldn't afford to buy his cars, he wouldn't be selling any.
I've made good money from every house I've partnered in building. But I've also been able to provide employment for a team of skilled craftsmen. Everyone benefits.
And when Friedman refers to history in the clip, he ignores the historical record surrounding the destabilizing effects of extreme wealth concentration, which was the question at hand. Historically, stability is in the middle, not at the extremes.
There are five acres of land with a ton of compost sitting in a pile in a corner of it, and there are five acres of land with the compost mixed into it. Which is going to be more fertile for growing crops?

 

[peckinpahhombre]

Sable, fair enough, but nothing in what you say is really inconsistent with the views of Milton Friedman. While Friedman felt (rightly, in my view) that capitalism (a system based on "greed" or "self interest") would achieve a greater level of equality than any other system, he also felt there was a role for government in alleviating poverty as a compassionate societal response. He was, in effect, a compassionate libertarian. However, he disagreed with many about how to achieve that result. He pointed out in his research that many government programs that were intended to alleviate income equality had perversely the opposite effect, including minimum wage laws and farm price supports. He famously advocated the negative income tax has a far less distortionary approach to address the issue of income inequality.

 

[whiteburleydude]

Just to be clear, I said Pipestud gets a "free pass" for selling fresh tobacco at markup when eBay sellers get a bad rap. I never said he gets a "free ride", AKA never had to work for what he has. I think some people are getting the two terms confused. With all the talk on these forums(and there was a lot, not a little) about the outrageous prices for McClelland tobacco on eBay, I wondered what separated the private eBay seller from Pipestud, and why nobody reacts to his website like they did to eBay. I'm not slamming Pipestud or 4noggins. If you thought that your missing the point. I'm slamming the forum more than I am them. I'm also not sure what a tobacco trade post I made (not in stealth at all) has to do with this thread.

 

[piperay70]

I'm from Denmark and it don't make me a automatically a socialist...to some people the til or cash register seems to be a new religion,that's all. I don't criticize great united states just business practices that will make people pay too much for something , Ok some might say it's buyer who's paying asked price but still here in Europe we might think little bit different about certain things. I'm very sorry if my views offend people but we're living in world where people have freedom choose his insights freely.

-Ernie

 

[brian64]

IMO, the key is contrasting the Friedman clip with the Godfather scene Maker posted. The self interest is great until you start putting “public servants” on the payroll.
The manure all piled up in one corner of the field is the result of organized crime, not Capitalism.
That’s why it was once a “conspiracy theory” that there was any such thing as organized crime. And it can operate with the cloak of socialism just as easily as with the cloak of capitalism.