Great post, lost of great wisdom. I might add one more tidbit just for your viewing entertainment: when I was starting out, I stocked up on a lot of stuff that sounded good, and maybe the first tin was enjoyable, but then I had four more tins that I knew I would likely never smoke since there were so many other blends I liked better. After several years, I had about three instances where I gathered up a bunch of well-aged tins and sold them through Pipestud's consignment shop, and made a very handy profit on every tin. Well aged tobacco sells for (sometimes) a few times its original price, so that's also a way to take some of the risk out of buying what you think might be "too much." The only catch is, you can only resell sealed tins through consignment shops, not bulk, and I have a lot of bulk stashed away. My stash won't last as long as hoosierpipeguy's, but I figure I have enough to last until I'm about 80-something.