Making the $11 tin cost $25 to get smuggled in ☹
Dangers Of MacB HH Blends With FDA Regs?
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Making the $11 tin cost $25 to get smuggled in ☹
Yeah, in general that's what I'm working towards being prepared for. At best, prices will nearly double for me once they start collecting excise tax. The reality is that there is a ton of great blends out there. My goal is to make sure that I have a lot of a few that I like. Everything else is gravy, though FOMO is a real thing.
"But I didn't get this blend, or this one. I only have 2 tins of this!" As long as I have some good stuff to smoke, I'll be happy.
Not that I'm wishing for internet sales to be banned or excise tax to be collected, but the other side of that coin may be that B&Ms can thrive again (okay, maybe survive) in the pipe business. It would be nice to have a few more around. Wonder what the situation is like in WA state, where tobacco can't be shipped. Anyone have any experience?
Exactly why I'm riding the sales right now and stocking up. The problem I have currently is having a fuzzy concept of a rational $ limit to spend. I'm easily over $1000 in the past few weeks but I think it's money spent as it will only get more expensive and harder to come by.
Focus on five blends and cellar them as deeply as you can. Though I have over 100 different blends, only five of those are cellared beyond 10 pounds each.
The numbers are WAG’s passed on by the sales channel people, who have to have some story to tell when they are standing around shooting the breeze in shops. This is particularly true in the case of imports. How much has already been spent complying with EU and UK regulations? How much of the work done to comply with those is transferable to paperwork that can be used for the FDA? Sales reps don’t know. I’m a (fully retired) lawyer and am intimately familiar with the Administrative Procedures Act, which (with some distinctive features) governs FDA rulemaking. I don’t know, either.
If you like a particular blend, and have money to do so, stock up There are trends taking place in this industry that have only been accelerated by Covid. Prices will go up. Choices will go down. And if there is a change in control of the Senate and White House this year, then all but face to face sales of tobacco will be banned.
Ah, support your local B& M! Right. How many B&M’s are current on their rent? How do there sales per square foot look like now and going forward when they have devoted so much space to humidified display of open boxes?
Well, shops in the UK can’t ship tobacco internationally. Estervals in Germany will ship to the US, relying (I an told by a friend in Washington state who has been a customer for many years) on an interpretation of the trade treaty between the US and Germany. But Heinrich (also in Germany) won’t ship tobacco to the US. The Danish Pipe Shop won’t ship internationally. Loopholes ultimately get closed. Tobacco is an international pariah.
That sounds like a good plan. It's one reason why I've recently been checking out more of the MB blends. Bought 2lbs of ODF and 1 each of HH Balkan and Latakia flake. Will pick up more. I'm waiting for some stock on some SG/GH blends to come in. Would like to lay in a few pounds if possible, especially of Ennerdale and Kendal Cream. Also buying some larger containers of C&D and GLP.
Of course, some yummies only come in 50g tins and there are a few blends that I have 20+ tins of.
Prior to the Laudasi buyout of C&D, you could order directly from them. Back then, any of there available crumble cakes could be bought in one pound bricks for less than $30. Man I miss those days.
I remember that. You could also order any blend pressed or not, as you prefer. Now it's about double that cost, but so is everything. I was buying Dunhill tins for $5. Now Royal Yacht is almost $13.
Yep, even got Craig to make me a brick of Black Frigate with no latakia in it for me once.
The trouble with forecasting the future is that it hasn't happened, and when it does how much of it will accord with your forecast? I got some money in 2013 and went nuts, spending $10K on tobacco within 18 months. I felt great to have put my smoking future out of the hands of the FDA, but most of the tobacco just did time in the jars, unsmoked. But then I had to quit. I sold all of it, losing up to 50% of what I'd paid.
Is spending the money worth it when the future may change the plans that you had made? What if you have to quit? If you lose interest, finding that the tobacco goddess no longer sings sweetly in your ear? If your wife has triplets and you have to have them too, to become the three people necessary for their care?
Is spending the money worth it when the future may change the plans that you had made? What if you have to quit? If you lose interest, finding that the tobacco goddess no longer sings sweetly in your ear? If your wife has triplets and you have to have them too, to become the three people necessary for their care?
I absolutely agree, and that's kind of what I mean. It's foolish to ignore potential changes coming in the future but where is the rational, reasonable line? We each have to decide for ourselves. My biggest concern with stockpiling a large, expensive cellar, is the prospect of some sort of catastrophic damage. In the end, if there is an event like that, the loss of the tobacco (and pipes) would be tragic but probably not very high on the list of concerns, all things being relative.
In the end, do what you're comfortable with and don't get crazy.
I thought the number was closer to $2500. Either way its pocket change. Not hard to amortize 10k over a few years.
In life in general,I have stopped forecasting the future long ago, It is what it is, yet I have no means spending that much on tobacco especially with the prices on tobacco here in the EU, If some particular blend goes out of production or becomes unavailable, so it be ,then I'd probably be trying to find a more or less decent substitute,
I wonder if St Bruno, Capstan and Erinomore brands will remain in the U.S market for the years to come
Agree. I would add the recommendation to focus within that on blends that will be gone in a year.
My MINIMUM was 30, 2oz tins of about 6 blends that I absolutely love and that are pretty unique to my palate.
There were a few that didn't make the cut because they were to similar to other blends.
I will still add a few more to the cellar, but if everything were to shut down today I'd be in pretty good shape.
I still have holes to fill, but they are with blends. Are not on the chopping block and I have time.
Hard to say. Erinmore I think was steady but both Bruno and Capstan were not available here for a long time. I've stocked up on Erinmore Flake and St. Bruno Flake and would hopefully add some more to them.
That sounds great. I picked up a bunch of more recent GLP in the last sale and will probably get some C&D when there is another sale. Also Seattle Pipe Club. Not sure where Plum Pudding falls so I bought 2lbs just to be sure when TobaccoPipes had their 10% sale.
I've gone up and down over the 20 years I've been smoking pipes with how much I pay attention to what's going on. I smoke only outside, usually in the temperate weather. This year I decided to revisit some things from the cellar pulled out a tin each of G&H Ennerdale and S&G Kendal Cream Flake, both from 2008. Also found a partially tin of SG Bracken that had gone dry. All three were exceptional smoke (Re-hydrated the Bracken). Went to go buy some and discovered that Gawith blends were almost non-existent and Bracken was non-existent. I was able to find some Kendal Cream and no Ennerdale to speak of. Then I cracked a tin of Peterson PPP. It was so good I knew I should stock up, so I did. When it arrived it was in those 100g round tins instead of the regular square ones that it used to come in. I was really surprised and went to research why the change happened. That's when I fount out that it wasn't available for awhile! At least I missed that dry spell, lol.
That's also how I found this site.
It's odd how it works for me. I've been smoking mostly C&D and some GLP over the past few years with occasional other stuff mixed in so I missed the poor supply of Gawith. Germain/Esoterica is another one that I wish I had paid more attention to. There are too many great blends in that line. I have some but not a crazy amount.
Yeah, we'll see. Will definitely bulk out some more with HH Blends and I'm sure I'll be hitting GLP and C&D when the sales come. Hoping to lay in some lbs of a few Gawith blends, too.
I can see boutique blenders starting Go Fund Me campaigns for new blends. I'm sure certain blenders would hit the threshold fast!
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