The Economics of Pipe Smoking

[Briar Lee]

Beside my father’s milk barn is an old oak tree, where I’d watch my pipe smoking mentor Harry Hosterman squat on his haunches and fill his little Dr Grabow with Prince Albert and spin stories of the hills about sixty years ago.

Harry Hosterman smoked a little pipe, but he smoked it a lot, and he used about one 20 cent can of Prince Albert a week.

When my parents took me to Humansville on Saturday back then I got a dollar to buy things with. I could have smoked myself into a stupor for a dollar a week.

The minimum wage was $1.25 an hour in 1963.

Missouri has a $12 minimum wage today.

In Humansville today is one cheap booze and smoke shop, on Main Street, ran by a Muslim immigrant.

He seems to do a brisk business selling $1 bottles of Fireball whiskey 20 at a time and a wall full of $10 a pound cheap RYO “pipe tobacco” takes up a lot of store space.

Half and Half is $3.49 a package.

When they have it, Prince Albert is $2.99 a package.

24/7 cigarettes are $19 a carton, $2 per package and they taste good.

The three hundred acres my father paid $15 an acre for 60 acres, $22.50 an acre for 80 acres, and inherited 160 acres his grandfather paid $5 an acre for now is worth over six thousand (??)per acre?

(Every hillbilly I know is a millionaire if they die. )

I just ordered in six pounds of PS Luxury Navy Flake for $239.04.



There are 64 42 gram packages of tobacco in that big sack of tobacco that’s coming in the mail. That works out to $3.75 per package.

Harry Hosterman could smoke PS Luxury Flake for a year and have some left over.

PS Luxury Flake is $40 a pound, $2.50 per ounce.

On Smokingpipes, there is a PA match blend at $132.14 for five pounds. That’s about $26.40 a pound or 53 42 gram packages at $2.49 each.



If your tobacco isn’t cheap, welcome to Missouri.

Your folks warned you not to smoke, remember?

 

[romaso]

I reckon that's an old photo, from a prior late fall or winter, either that or your trees aren't doing so well...
I'll bet it's pretty there in the autumn. I miss the colors of the hardwoods, we've got lots of evergreens in the PNW and it actually gets greener in the autumn as the rains wash the dust off!

You can save alot by buying the 5 lb bulks. Good feeling having a stocked cellar.

 

[hugodrax]

Yawknapatawpha County?

 

[Briar Lee]

I reckon that's an old photo, from a prior late fall or winter, either that or your trees aren't doing so well...
I'll bet it's pretty there in the autumn. I miss the colors of the hardwoods, we've got lots of evergreens in the PNW and it actually gets greener in the autumn as the rains wash the dust off!

You can save alot by buying the 5 lb bulks. Good feeling having a stocked cellar.

That was mid February this year, before the peepers came out.

Inside that little Grade A milk barn I’ve kept it the same way as when my father died in September 1971.

Even then, nobody would rent it to milk cows.

The spot is about one half mile South of a little town named Sexton in 1876, when my great great grandfather Alvin bought that 80 acres as a wedding present for his second wife Paralee’s parents Thomas and Elizabeth Fisher, for $400.

The price of a beautiful 27 (?) year old virgin bride has risen considerably since.

 

[RonB]

Pipe tobacco is certainly a bargain in today's world, especially compared to heavily taxed cigarettes and hand made cigars. $10 a stick still kinda shocks me every time I light a cigar up.

 

[Sailingtiger]

I smoked cigars for years, spent about $300 a month, and yes pipe tobacco is one of the few affordable pleasures. Do not miss cigars, using my old cigar budget to feed the many birds I have.
cheers

 

[VDL_Piper]

The economics of smoking a pipe is forever changing. Here in Australia it’s cost prohibitive if you’re smoking a lot of tobacco a day and this is all due to government intervention/tax. Here is a screen shot of my last order

As you can see it’s eye watering but I have made a conscious decision to smoke my pipe until I die or am physically incapable of doing so. Why??…………because I don’t just love smoking for the sake of it but because for me the smoking of a pipe is a meditative thing. When I smoke my pipe I think more clearly, I slow down, I watch, I plan and strategize and generally enter a different state of mind that seems unobtainable any other way. My best farming and money making decisions are made with a pipe clenched, whiskey held and great plumes of smoke swirling around me. So for me it’s a way to clear the mind in a world that seems to be gaining momentum towards more and more craziness. People don’t talk to one another in person anymore. It’s all driven now through a digital universe, people don’t stop to help someone in need they pull out their phone and record it for a digital platform for “likes”, personal approval from complete strangers!!
My pipe cuts through all this nonsense and transports me back in time to when the simple things mattered and it allows me to make really good decisions in a world where good decisions are becoming very hard to find.

So the economics of smoking a pipe for me aren’t just financial there is much greater cost if I stop.

 

[romaso]

@VDL_Piper
Maybe it's cheaper to fly to some other close country and bring back your duty allotment at a lower price? (if you have one!)

Years ago I took the ferry between Dover and France and several people were going just to buy beer and cigs duty-free on the boat, not even getting off in France. They had little wheeled carts for their haul.

 

[Sailingtiger]

I just checked the Australian dollar vs. US dollar and I am in shock over the price in USD, good God.

 

[ChonkyTonks]

The economics of smoking a pipe is forever changing. Here in Australia it’s cost prohibitive if you’re smoking a lot of tobacco a day and this is all due to government intervention/tax. Here is a screen shot of my last order
View attachment 163985
As you can see it’s eye watering but I have made a conscious decision to smoke my pipe until I die or am physically incapable of doing so. Why??…………because I don’t just love smoking for the sake of it but because for me the smoking of a pipe is a meditative thing. When I smoke my pipe I think more clearly, I slow down, I watch, I plan and strategize and generally enter a different state of mind that seems unobtainable any other way. My best farming and money making decisions are made with a pipe clenched, whiskey held and great plumes of smoke swirling around me. So for me it’s a way to clear the mind in a world that seems to be gaining momentum towards more and more craziness. People don’t talk to one another in person anymore. It’s all driven now through a digital universe, people don’t stop to help someone in need they pull out their phone and record it for a digital platform for “likes”, personal approval from complete strangers!!
My pipe cuts through all this nonsense and transports me back in time to when the simple things mattered and it allows me to make really good decisions in a world where good decisions are becoming very hard to find.

So the economics of smoking a pipe for me aren’t just financial there is much greater cost if I stop.

Herre gud. I feel for you, brother. It really puts into perspective how good we have it here in the US. That brings a tear to my eye.

 

[VDL_Piper]

@VDL_Piper
Maybe it's cheaper to fly to some other close country and bring back your duty allotment at a lower price? (if you have one!)

Years ago I took the ferry between Dover and France and several people were going just to buy beer and cigs duty-free on the boat, not even getting off in France. They had little wheeled carts for their haul.

I think I’m allowed 50 gms duty free, good idea but all loop holes are closed. The only option you have is to get friends to mail tobacco to you in small’ish lots but if caught it’s a hefty fine.

 

[ChonkyTonks]

I think I’m allowed 50 gms duty free, good idea but all loop holes are closed. The only option you have is to get friends to mail tobacco to you in small’ish lots.

What are considered “small’ish lots”?

 

[VDL_Piper]

What are considered “small’ish lots”?

100/200gms

 

[romaso]

I think I’m allowed 50 gms duty free, good idea but all loop holes are closed. The only option you have is to get friends to mail tobacco to you in small’ish lots but if caught it’s a hefty fine.

Do they have tobacco-sniffing dogs at the border?
How far can a drone fly? Maybe a boat from Papua-New Guinea (where it's got to be cheaper) could get close enough to fly a drone in.
Have any friends trained in HALO parachuting? They could drop in a large load.
Or I'll bet the Chinese would rent you one of their submarines, and you could bring in a huge haul!
Or you could move to Missouri, where Briar Lee tells us tobacco is really inexpensive.

 

[VDL_Piper]

I like the idea of a HALO drop ?. In reality I just have to chip away and add as I can. I‘ve got a tobacco target I’m trying to reach and then I can stop and just smoke my cellar and it’s not a crazy number. I’m a bowl a day guy and I’ve added some provision for retirement smoking when I know I’ll increase my daily consumption.

 

[MattRVA]

The economics of smoking a pipe is forever changing. Here in Australia it’s cost prohibitive if you’re smoking a lot of tobacco a day and this is all due to government intervention/tax. Here is a screen shot of my last order
View attachment 163985
As you can see it’s eye watering but I have made a conscious decision to smoke my pipe until I die or am physically incapable of doing so. Why??…………because I don’t just love smoking for the sake of it but because for me the smoking of a pipe is a meditative thing. When I smoke my pipe I think more clearly, I slow down, I watch, I plan and strategize and generally enter a different state of mind that seems unobtainable any other way. My best farming and money making decisions are made with a pipe clenched, whiskey held and great plumes of smoke swirling around me. So for me it’s a way to clear the mind in a world that seems to be gaining momentum towards more and more craziness. People don’t talk to one another in person anymore. It’s all driven now through a digital universe, people don’t stop to help someone in need they pull out their phone and record it for a digital platform for “likes”, personal approval from complete strangers!!
My pipe cuts through all this nonsense and transports me back in time to when the simple things mattered and it allows me to make really good decisions in a world where good decisions are becoming very hard to find.

So the economics of smoking a pipe for me aren’t just financial there is much greater cost if I stop.

Man I’m sorry you guys have to pay that much for tobacco. I wouldn’t be able to smoke my pipe if I had to pay those prices.

 

[romaso]

@VDL_Piper Really, though, at those prices tell all your friends to bring you back a tin from wherever they go and you'll repay them. Maybe if you have connections with certain groups (trade, church, fraternal, etc) you can even get a group haul, offer to buy the group pizza and beer if they each bring you a tin when they visit. You'll come out ahead.

 

[AJL67]

A population should never disarm themselves willingly. ?

 

[Briar Lee]

The economics of smoking a pipe is forever changing. Here in Australia it’s cost prohibitive if you’re smoking a lot of tobacco a day and this is all due to government intervention/tax. Here is a screen shot of my last order
View attachment 163985
As you can see it’s eye watering but I have made a conscious decision to smoke my pipe until I die or am physically incapable of doing so. Why??…………because I don’t just love smoking for the sake of it but because for me the smoking of a pipe is a meditative thing. When I smoke my pipe I think more clearly, I slow down, I watch, I plan and strategize and generally enter a different state of mind that seems unobtainable any other way. My best farming and money making decisions are made with a pipe clenched, whiskey held and great plumes of smoke swirling around me. So for me it’s a way to clear the mind in a world that seems to be gaining momentum towards more and more craziness. People don’t talk to one another in person anymore. It’s all driven now through a digital universe, people don’t stop to help someone in need they pull out their phone and record it for a digital platform for “likes”, personal approval from complete strangers!!
My pipe cuts through all this nonsense and transports me back in time to when the simple things mattered and it allows me to make really good decisions in a world where good decisions are becoming very hard to find.

So the economics of smoking a pipe for me aren’t just financial there is much greater cost if I stop.

How does the Aussie government stop tobacco gardens?

 

[OzPiper]

It's all relative.
AUD$500 of pipe tobacco goes a lot further than AUD$500 worth of Habanos.
You can drop AUD$500 on a bottle of wine or spirits easily

As long as the bills are paid, kids fed and clothed and there is a roof over your head.
If a pipe helps you de-stress after a day of hard yakka it's worth its asking price.