Hola from Toronto!

[leonardbill1]

Welcome from Denver!

 

[haebar]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

 

[GreatWhiteNorthPiper]

Thanks JS! That sounds great and I'd love to take you up on that!

I too am a local Torontonian about a year into my own piping journey and would love to meet up with some fellow pipers! Perhaps a group purchase would be in order?

 

[Kobold]

Welcome from Maryland!

 

[AroEnglish]

Hola! RIP to your wallet if you get TAD paying Canadian prices.

 

[mso489]

Hey, from central North Carolina, and welcome aboard. My first visit to Toronto years ago was in March, on business, and on my off hours I bought a Cuban cigar, went to the top of the broadcast tower, visited your excellent art museum, and walked around Toronto Island during the off-season. I liked the dry cold and the black squirrels.

 

[WVOldFart]

Hello and welcome from West Virginia, USA.

 

[Templekeeper]

Hola! RIP to your wallet if you get TAD paying Canadian prices.

I was really afraid of that when I started, so I am ecstatic to have discovered SmokingPipes.com and their dirt-cheap shipping to Canada! It takes a couple of weeks, but I can get 4x the tobacco for what I'd pay to buy just one tin here.

 

[Templekeeper]

Hey, from central North Carolina, and welcome aboard. My first visit to Toronto years ago was in March, on business, and on my off hours I bought a Cuban cigar, went to the top of the broadcast tower, visited your excellent art museum, and walked around Toronto Island during the off-season. I liked the dry cold and the black squirrels.

Nice! How many years ago was that? I love the AGO and the island.

 

[AroEnglish]

I was really afraid of that when I started, so I am ecstatic to have discovered SmokingPipes.com and their dirt-cheap shipping to Canada! It takes a couple of weeks, but I can get 4x the tobacco for what I'd pay to buy just one tin here.

Yeah, I used them a lot too when I was living in Canada. I never got hit with customs but even if had been on occasion, I'm sure it would've still been cheaper than buying locally. It just really stinks for the B&Ms.

 

[Highlandpiper]

Welcome from a relative newbie in Scotland. You definitely found a great resource in the experience of the forum. Great people sharing their knowledge to aid is on the journey.

 

[Templekeeper]

Yeah, I used them a lot too when I was living in Canada. I never got hit with customs but even if had been on occasion, I'm sure it would've still been cheaper than buying locally. It just really stinks for the B&Ms.

THAT was also a great surprise! The first purchase I made I was doing the math and considering the roughtly C$10 tax per tin. That still would've been less than half of the local price. So second time around I was hoping not to get hit by customs and sure enough, I bought 4x the product for the same price of one tin locally.
And I totally agree with your second point. As much as I appreciate and would love to support local (especially B&M) an 80% discount is just too much. Fortunately the price of actual pipes and accessories is great.

 

[mso489]

Templekeeper, my first visit to Toronto was so long ago I'd have to guess it was in the late 1990's, and i had a second business trip there in the year 2000. In 2006, I celebrated my birthday with a trip to Montreal, another great Canadian city. Another great art museum!

 

[Pipeoff]

Welcome from W. N.Y. No samples of bulk buy an oz. of any that appeals to you. Enjoy the search.

 

[TN Jed]

Welcome from Tennessee.

 

[Jbyrd]

Welcome from Missouri

 

[Scottmi]

Hello and welcome from Orcas, WA. Be sure to find the "What are you smoking" thread for great daily camaraderie!

 

[Templekeeper]

Hello and welcome from Orcas, WA. Be sure to find the "What are you smoking" thread for great daily camaraderie!

Thanks Scott. I did and it's great!

 

[TravB]

I started smoking pipes a few weeks ago and it's become my newest obsession!

I grew up in Mexico and picked up smoking cigars from my father. It was great to have so many options available but they still remained occasional. After moving to Canada, they became even rarer - more 'celebratory' in nature.

A few months ago, a partner gave me a "Warm Tobacco Pipe" candle by DW Home. It smelled luxurious, but being small, I chose to save it for a special occasion. Then, a few weeks ago a project at work made me think of the candle again and so I decided to try it out and light it for a little bit. The scent matched my memories of the smell of the pipe my uncle used to smoke when I was a kid, and instantly set off an insatiable thirst to try smoking a pipe myself.

For the next few days I obsessed online over pipes, and chose two to order online and try out: a Muxiang churchwarden and Joyoldelf mini-churchwarden. For the tobacco I was a lot less thoughtful. I looked up local shops that sold pipe tobacco. One of them had several rows of Cornell & Diehl and I picked Haunted Bookshop based on the notes written beneath each tin (and because I liked the name).
I then proceeded to give myself some nasty tongue bite that lasted for almost a week. The aroma and room note of the tobacco was also far, far from what I was expecting. It was then that I began looking more into different tobaccos. It was a bit of a hard find, but I eventually happened upon a shop that sold tobacco by the bulk, and went there hoping to be able to sample different ones. While they could not sell sample-sizes of the tobacco, I was able to smell the jars with different blends and chose a seasonal blend with black cavendish to try. Now that was more like it! With that I was able to get a more pleasing aroma and taste, one that more closely matched the candle and my memories.
After going online to find out what black cavendish actually wash and in turn learn all about the different leaves and processes, I learned about the concept of "room note" which was exactly what I was pursuing. That led me to the discovery of this website, tobaccoreviews.com, and smokingpipes.com, including through a couple of searches for "top" or "best" room note tobaccos. A bowl of 1-Q and Autumn Evening later, and I was been completely smitten.
I know have 4 pipes (all churchwardens or semi), and a fifth one is on the way from danishpipeshop.com (which actually has an exhaustive list of different shapes - this site is where I probably learned best about all the different ones).

Welcome from Texas!

 

[Y2kpipper]

Hello from Missouri