Bye Bye Nat Sherman

[Richmond B. Funkenhouser]

My answer is "the internet." Instead of browsing through paper catalogs and ordering by mail or by phone, you can pull up a searchable database of consumer goods and order at will any time on a computer or smart phone and buy them with a few clicks of the mouse.

Right. I guess its like carrying every mail order catalogue in production, in your pocket.

 

[BROBS]

My answer is "the internet." Instead of browsing through paper catalogs and ordering by mail or by phone, you can pull up a searchable database of consumer goods and order at will any time on a computer or smart phone and buy them with a few clicks of the mouse.

Exactly. Also rather than traveling from store to store looking for the best deal or a product to be in stock, you can compare and search the world with a few clicks.

 

[SoddenJack]

Exactly. Also rather than traveling from store to store looking for the best deal or a product to be in stock, you can compare and search the world with a few clicks.

Shipping is faster, cheaper, and generally more reliable now too. Amazon in 2 days, less if you live near a warehouse. I ordered bootleg Pokémon figures from China and received them in 3 weeks.

 

[SoddenJack]

I passed by their store probably 1000 times -- first when they were on 5th and then their newer location on 42nd. Only stopped in a handful of times -- wasn't a pipe or cigar smoker until relatively recently. I picked up a pack of high end cigarettes a couple of times a long time ago when i was an occasional social cigarette smoker. Most recently bought some 536 in bulk (at $5 an ounce). Had a very nice interaction with the guy behind the counter. It is a shame but I can see how changing consumer tastes, anti-smoking, and recent events put them under. Also Altria, which owns Nat Sherman, said that the premium cigar business doesn't mesh with their core business.

Altria no longer wants to produce premium Nat Sherman cigars, but fear not! They’ll still keeping it classy with their wine flavored Black n Milds.

 

[scloyd]

Of course exceptions will be made. I live in the rural Midwest as many here know, and I'm pretty sure Tractor Supply isn't going anywhere.

...and Farm & Fleet. They're not going anywhere.

 

[creole]

That’s a shame. I haven’t been to Nat Sherman in at least five years but I am still enjoying their 127, a VaPer that is, or was, only available at the store.

 

[condorlover1]

I must pop in and grab a few tins of stuff just to have in stock to trade!

 

[JoeKemp]

Yes. This is very true. We have a house in the hudson valley, and we we also have an apt in DUMBO. Since this pandemic hit, we have spent more time in the hudson valley. It is not safe in NYC anymore.

 

[jhowell]

Oddly enough, buying from Amazon and eBay is much more similar to buying out of the old Sears catalogs rather than shopping at a store.

EXACTLY! Amazon IS the modern incarnation (evolution) of what Sears & Roebuck started...

 

[mityahicks]

I ordered some of their cigars to try before they are gone for good. I knew the rebranding was a long shot. I've enjoyed what I've smoked by them.

 

[mso489]

I don't think of what happened to Greenwich Village as gentrification; that's a misnomer. Gentrification is when well-off young folks buy up old buildings and spruce them up at great expense and commence to live there. In Greenwich Village, old brownstones are bought up and gutted, and the interiors are fixed up with all kinds of exaggerated high end amenities -- gyms, saunas, libraries, you name it. But then ho, does anyone move and in commence pregnancies and baby buggy walks? Oh no no no. People from Wall Street and the Middle East and other places with untold monies buy them up and flip them regularly, and no one lives there for years and years, and maybe they are rented to corporations or oil companies, but nothing resembling residencies or human life occurs there. They are investment properties, as devoid of human habitation as mars. Gentrification looks benign by comparison. Sterilization is more the term I think of.

 

[oldgeezersmoker]

As Mary McNiel mentioned in an article published in one of the trade magazines right after McClellands closed, they tinned some blends for Nat Sherman in the very early days of McClelland. I don’t think she mentioned the names, and I can’t recall any of them independently. I do recall that I saw one of these, not for sale, at the last Richmond show I attended in the late 1990’s. My memory is that the only way you could tell it was McClellands was that it had their tobacco processor # on the label.

 

[gerryp]

I never went to the store, but when I smoked cigars more often theirs were on my list of regulars.

The b&m tobacco stores around here seem to be doing ok. I buy most of my tobacco and all my pipes online. But every so often I'll go to a local store and grit my teeth as I shell out 20 bucks for a tin of Peterson whatever, just to show some support for the locals.

 

[mso489]

I'm a great devotee of the most customer friendly online retailers of pipes and tobacco, but I also revere the actual pipe shops, and certainly the "greats" like Iwan Ries and Nat Sherman. Life circumstances make it tough and sometimes irresponsible to go hang out at my local independent pipe shop, but I get over there when I can ... while I can.

 

[BROBS]

I never went to the store, but when I smoked cigars more often theirs were on my list of regulars.

The b&m tobacco stores around here seem to be doing ok. I buy most of my tobacco and all my pipes online. But every so often I'll go to a local store and grit my teeth as I shell out 20 bucks for a tin of Peterson whatever, just to show some support for the locals.

20 bucks? That’s cheap compared to here.

 

[anotherbob]

I suspect that over the next few decades, the memory of many storefronts will become about as quaint as the present-day memory of ordering out of the old Sears & Roebuck catalogs through the early 1900's. Oddly enough, buying from Amazon and eBay is much more similar to buying out of the old Sears catalogs rather than shopping at a store.

Of course exceptions will be made. I live in the rural Midwest as many here know, and I'm pretty sure Tractor Supply isn't going anywhere.

I've noticed the businesses that seem to stay and thrive have some personal touch. A reason you would be better suited going there and talking to someone.

 

[boston]

I am sad to hear this. I have been to the shop, probably over a decade ago, and they had special / rare cigars in the humidor. I still have one with a numbered band. Always made me feel special to get a few cigars from them, very nice staff. On impulse, and for nostalgia, I just got two boxes (10 cigars each) of timeless panamericana cervantes from Neptune. I hope they are good.....totally taking a chance here....but every time a vendor is going away I kick myself for not making a purchase while I can.

 

[mso489]

I resist the rush to do everything on devices. I actually park my car and go into the bank, or now drive by the branch bank hours at the window where I actually talk to a bank employee, with the ATM staring me in the face as it were. I say, if I am going to be shortchanged, I'd rather have it be human iniquity than one more damned glitch in a computer circuit. Pretty soon we are just a snarky undependable part of the digital machinery of the world. Our greatest attainment, it would seem, is to not stir up their little binary artificially intelligent brains. I'm not sure I like it.

 

[anotherbob]

That makes you think.. Mail order goods have been around forever. Why is the boom now?

I remember ordering something from those catalogs and then waiting almost a month. You would just have to forget about it and then feel like it's a present when you got it.

 

[gerryp]

20 bucks? That’s cheap compared to here.

How much for a tin where you're at?