Pipes and Cigars Online Store. Never Again.

[tanless1]

Granted, I've not been around for sometime; but p&c was an early supporter of this website. They'd really lay out the spread for us come international pipe smoking day.
Sure, their communication (at times) could be more forth coming; but for as frequently as I order I have found them nothing but pleasant, and helpful.
Yes, I also use smokingpipes. i enjoy them both. I do tend to save a little money with p&c.

 

[tanless1]

You can't blame CI/P&C (same company, same building, same everything) for USPS/UPS problems, and yes, everybody makes mistakes. But when they are given all the receipts and documentation and fail to ascertain that THEY made the mistake, not the customer, when they then double down TWICE, threaten and then send the customer's confidential information to an outside collection agency...well...that's a problem.

I'm not telling anyone here how to spend their their money, or who to do business with, but frankly....you've been warned.

View attachment 309013

CI/P&C President Ralph Phlegmsly on his lunch break​

Let's not forget that ci bought p&c which was an independent company. Russ had to move to stay with the company

 

[woodsroad]

Let's not forget that ci bought p&c which was an independent company. Russ had to move to stay with the company

And?
The owners sold it, willingly.
Russ moved because they made him a good offer.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I made an order for something that only P&C has the other day. Then I received the box when they said it would be here. What did I do wrong?

I did notice that the bulk H&H Annie Kake is NOTHING like the version I have been smoking for years. When I did open the bag, it smelled like pig shit, similar to some C&D blends. No hints of cinnamon and baking spices like it used to. I still kind of like it, but it's NOT Annie Kake.

 

[Choatecav]

I made an order for something that only P&C has the other day. Then I received the box when they said it would be here. What did I do wrong?

I did notice that the bulk H&H Annie Kake is NOTHING like the version I have been smoking for years. When I did open the bag, it smelled like pig shit, similar to some C&D blends. No hints of cinnamon and baking spices like it used to. I still kind of like it, but it's NOT Annie Kake.

Hmmmm..... "pig shit....." Was that on the tin note or the room note??

I have a cousin that might like that......

 

[rmcnabb]

Well I buy usually about every two weeks and have made about ten orders with PandC and all have been perfectly executed. I’ve asked customer service a couple of questions and always got a personal response from a very nice lady in usually about 6 hours. They have a few things you can’t get elsewhere. So far so good. Maybe they’re hearing the drums in the distance and are tightening things up.

That said, I got a two ounce trial of Anniversary Kake and it was awful. I’m going to give it a few more bowls before I flush it, maybe it’s me. Interesting that someone else said the same thing. Blends do change, but they’re nuts if they think people don’t notice and they’re crazy if they think people don’t care.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Well I buy usually about every two weeks and have made about ten orders with PandC and all have been perfectly executed. I’ve asked customer service a couple of questions and always got a personal response from a very nice lady in usually about 6 hours. They have a few things you can’t get elsewhere. So far so good. Maybe they’re hearing the drums in the distance and are tightening things up.

That said, I got a two ounce trial of Anniversary Kake and it was awful. I’m going to give it a few more bowls before I flush it, maybe it’s me. Interesting that someone else said the same thing. Blends do change, but they’re nuts if they think people don’t notice and they’re crazy if they think people don’t care.

It tastes good... but it is not even close to being Annie Kake. The initial pigshit smell dissipates, ha ha.

 

[tanless1]

I made an order for something that only P&C has the other day. Then I received the box when they said it would be here. What did I do wrong?

I did notice that the bulk H&H Annie Kake is NOTHING like the version I have been smoking for years. When I did open the bag, it smelled like pig shit, similar to some C&D blends. No hints of cinnamon and baking spices like it used to. I still kind of like it, but it's NOT Annie Kake.

I just cracked a jar that'd been aging for the past 12 years....yes, I'm bragging

 

[georged]

I've never ordered anything from P&C, so have nothing to add except a meaningless word salad to help keep the thread going.

 

[rmcnabb]

Well, I’m all for groundlessness. It’s what I built my empire on.

 

[sablebrush52]

Well I buy usually about every two weeks and have made about ten orders with PandC and all have been perfectly executed. I’ve asked customer service a couple of questions and always got a personal response from a very nice lady in usually about 6 hours. They have a few things you can’t get elsewhere. So far so good. Maybe they’re hearing the drums in the distance and are tightening things up.

That said, I got a two ounce trial of Anniversary Kake and it was awful. I’m going to give it a few more bowls before I flush it, maybe it’s me. Interesting that someone else said the same thing. Blends do change, but they’re nuts if they think people don’t notice and they’re crazy if they think people don’t care.

It's not always a case of don't care. For a variety of reasons, a lot of growers have moved on to other, more profitable, crops. Finding components has become more difficult, more expensive, or just not available. Rather than retire a blend a maker will just substitute with what they can. The practice of making substitutions isn't new, it was happening decades ago. It seems to me that the growth of this sort of practice has accelerated over the past 5-6 years.

 

[rmcnabb]

Correct, I am sure they have a very hard time maintaining consistency from such a small handmade crop as tobacco, sourced from some of the worlds roughest neighborhoods sometimes.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Rather than retire a blend a maker will just substitute with what they can.

Different leaf, different casing, different cut... it's not even close. I can't believe Russ would let this go out the door as Annie Kake. And, a very level headed post about a blend completely changing from the king of letting us all know Balkan Sobranie is not Balkan Sobranie. Just messin" with ya, Jess. But, this is on a level above Balkan Sobranie's differences, IMO.

 

[sablebrush52]

Different leaf, different casing, different cut... it's not even close. I can't believe Russ would let this go out the door as Annie Kake. And, a very level headed post about a blend completely changing from the king of letting us all know Balkan Sobranie is not Balkan Sobranie. Just messin" with ya, Jess. But, this is on a level above Balkan Sobranie's differences, IMO.

I agree completely. It's a mess out there. For those of us who remember what many of these popular blends tasted like a decade, much less three decades, ago it's almost a horror story.

But people with little to no past history will just make choices based on how they like what's available, without Marley's ghost standing around, moaning and rattling his chains.

But for anyone wondering why a "famous" blend that was a "gold standard" tastes like bland mud, it's because you just bought a tin with a famous label on it, filled with whatever they could find.

 

[newbroom]

I love some of Russ's blends. We had a tobacco crawl with some of his stuff and it was really top notch. The best of the 4 we tried, and it was a fairly close call, was Firestorm.
Capitalism can be cancerous.

 

[tanless1]

I love some of Russ's blends. We had a tobacco crawl with some of his stuff and it was really top notch. The best of the 4 we tried, and it was a fairly close call, was Firestorm.
Capitalism can be cancerous.

Russ really makes him self available, and I appreciate that.....alot of us benifit from that.
I'm working on that firestorm. Sometimes you've got to give it a chance to grow on you.
WarHorse? Big Fan !!!

 

[The Amish Tyrant]

The one issue I had with P&C involved receiving a 250g box when 500g was ordered. A quick email with photo proof later resulted in getting the 500g box and keeping the 250g.

YMMV

 

[buroak]

The worst problem I have ever had with P&C was banged up tins. They either replaced them with no requirement that I returned the damaged tins, or paid for me to ship them back. When I have needed to talk with customer service, I have never had anything less than personable and courteous interactions. (As with so many other things in life, you get out what you put in.)

I took advantage of the Peterson tin sale they are currently running. Everything went as long experience (~10 years) has taught me to expect: smoothly.

 

[anotherbob]

It's not always a case of don't care. For a variety of reasons, a lot of growers have moved on to other, more profitable, crops. Finding components has become more difficult, more expensive, or just not available. Rather than retire a blend a maker will just substitute with what they can. The practice of making substitutions isn't new, it was happening decades ago. It seems to me that the growth of this sort of practice has accelerated over the past 5-6 years.

The first blender I talked to said that was happening always, because every order of leaf you get is going to be different and it's a case of trying to keep it consistent which is not always going to happen.

 

[sablebrush52]

The first blender I talked to said that was happening always, because every order of leaf you get is going to be different and it's a case of trying to keep it consistent which is not always going to happen.

In days of yore, when blenders had reliable contracts with particular growers, crops from several years would be blended to reduce the year by year variation. Think of it as homogenization. Then, adjustments would be made to the flavorings to further enhance the stability of a blend. I think that the end of subsidies to tobacco farmers really set off the changes we're seen over the last 8 or so years.