It's too soon after McClelland's closing for the action to normalize. Check back in a couple of months. There are more sellers posting McClelland products every day. Eventually the supply, which is enormous, will outstrip demand as people turn to other blends. The panic will wear off. Prices will be higher than they were, but not like they are now.
There's little logic to it. Tins of older Christmas Cheer are fetching much higher prices than they did a few months ago, and they were no less out of production then than they are now.
Then fast forward 8 to 10 years, and those insane prices could well be the norm, or even low. Or, the whole market for vintage tobaccos could just go flat for any of a number of reasons.
There's a tin of Balkan Blue making it up there too. What make a that really funny is the order for 10 tins of them I made last week was $95.
Yep, I did the same, 10 tins. I do wonder how many of these panic buyers are from outside the US. I hope that they derive pleasure from smoking these blends commensurate with the prices they're paying.
It's been a long time since a major blender closed. There was more of that in the '70's thru '90's it seems. So the shock is big with relatively newer pipe smokers.
The 40th was the one of, if not THE, smallest production runs of any of their blends. Those will probably become the equivalent to Sobranie products in prices over time. If I decide to sell just a small portion of my stash of them a few years down the road, they could well pay for all of my cellar and pipe collection expense.
Insane.