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akfilm

Can't Leave
Mar 2, 2016
309
1
I was digging through my pipe cabinet when I found some old tins of Prince Albert I had found in a Michigan antique shop when I was visiting my parents but I had forgotten about. When I picked them up I felt weight in them that I hadn't noticed before. I opened the one with the tax stamps on it first, a tin from 1954 or thereabouts, I didn't find PA, but I did find a pouch of Bull Durham, with all the tags and papers still intact, inside the label was a handwritten note "From Joe Hance to Frank Calif April 1978". The second tin of PA is dated around 1960, no later than 1962, had still has the waxed paper wrapper with all the tobacco in it. The wrapper is advertising that you can mail 10 wrappers and $2 in and receive a Dr. Grabow pipe. Planning on re-hydrating and giving it a smoke.

Funny what happens when you are trying to find your trade era clay pipe you know you have buried somewhere.

 

akfilm

Can't Leave
Mar 2, 2016
309
1
What should I expect? I've never smoked Prince Albert. Is it burley based?

 

akfilm

Can't Leave
Mar 2, 2016
309
1
Here we go! Figured a cob was a solid choice for this 57 year old tobacco.

20170410_151040_zps3x5olldr.jpg


 

theloniousmonkfish

Part of the Furniture Now
Jan 1, 2017
943
497
I've smoked pre-barcode Prince Albert and it was fine, a little dry, the Burley doesn't age really but you might pick up some vinegar tang from the Virginia in it.

 

akfilm

Can't Leave
Mar 2, 2016
309
1
Exactly as you described. Fun stuff smoking tobacco almost twice the age of me.

 

hawky454

Lifer
Feb 11, 2016
5,338
10,220
Austin, TX
I agree with Cigarguy, it tastes like a chemical spill or maybe zombie pubes (I know that will raise a lot of ???) but I bet that stuff was actually pretty damn good once apon a time.

 

akfilm

Can't Leave
Mar 2, 2016
309
1
I've not had it at all. This old one didn't strike me as bad, but had an interesting taste, the burley was very present with a souring of the virginias (but not in a bad way). It was bone dry, but actually smoked really really well. I wouldn't buy a new blend of it for sure because the mix is just not my thing, but the novelty of the smoke is great. I'm going to share some with my tobacconist and see what he thinks about it.

 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
This reinforces my notion that tobacco can dry out a lot, as long as it doesn't turn to powder, and still smoke well. This is especially true of fairly simple burley blends (and maybe some others I don't know). The square-rigger sailors kept their tobacco in cloth bags, and it probably dried out quite a bit, despite humidity at sea. Burley strikes different people differently. Some can't taste it at all. Some just don't like it generally. Some like it selectively. Mostly I like it a lot, including PA. Semois most of all, although it is a burley variant from Belgium.

 
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