What Would You Do?

[texasfiremedic]

Greeting fellow pipe aficionados! I am wanting your input for a soon to be purchase with two major online retailers. I am located in Dallas, Texas and unfortunately there is a lack of brick and mortar stores with a good supply near me. So I am looking at ordering a pretty large order for me around the $100 mark. I am a relatively new pipe smoker so I enjoy "tasting the market" to find out what I really enjoy. I have tried the following and really enjoyed it: White Knight, Frog Morton Cellar, Frog Morton On The Town, Aperitif, Standard Mixture from Dunhill, Count Pulaski, Vanilla Custard from Sutliff, and 515 RC 1. I was not a huge fan of C&D Bijou, Strathspey, Jubilee so I put those away to start my cellar!
My question is in regards to a current promotion that Pipes and Cigars has right now. Free pipe with the purchase of $100. Currently my Pipes and Cigars is the following:

Newminster No. 400 Superior Navy Flake

HH Old Dark Fired Ready-Rubbed

Peter Stokkebye 403 Luxury Bulls Eye Flake

Sutliff Virginia Slice

H. Sutliff Mixture No. 79 Bulk

Sutliff Christmas Spice

Sutliff Pumpkin Spice

MATCH Nightcap

Cornell & Diehl Bayou Morning BACKORDERED

Cornell & Diehl Black Gold Maple

Cornell & Diehl Haunted Bookshop

Cornell & Diehl Star of the East

Seattle Pipe Club Mississippi River

Orlik Golden Sliced

Vanilla Cream Flake - MacBaron

GL Pease Gaslight BACKORDERED

Dunhill Early Morning

Dunhill Durbar Mixture

Escudo Navy De Luxe
Total 108.31 which would qualify for a free pipe
The Smoking Pipes order looks like all of the above plus: Golden Days of Yore from C&D, Autumn Evening from C&D (a fellow forum member graciously offered to send me a sample if I like I will be purchasing some more), Star of East Gold, Father Dempsey
Total 136.11
What would you do? Would you forgo the blends that are not available on P&C get the "free" pipe? Or would you spend the extra money and get all the blends you were looking to try? As you can tell I am looking for some seasonal blends; let me know if you have any go to Fall blends so I can try them out!

 

[sablebrush52]

Personally, I'd forget about the free pipe and get the blends that I want to smoke. You don't know when those missing blends will show up.

 

[jrenko]

I whould go for more tobacco over a free pipe. Mabey include some latakia heavy blends to try like, ten russians or pirate kake.

 

[lavarockpuffer]

Pipes of quality abound online... skip the free pipe unless you see one you like.

Read the reviews and details on the blends you want and choose from those.

The estate pipe market is good for new smokers and

are available at online retailers, check out listings at BlueRoomBriars

Scott and Jesse are very helpful. Also eBay.

Just my two cents...

 

[pipesticks]

Free pipes is good. I've received a slew of free pipes from P&C over the years. I admit, none of them have made it onto my short list of favorite pipes, but I smoke them all and it's a good way to build your collection on the cheap. I wouldn't worry about backorders too much at P&C...you'll get them eventually and you have plenty to smoke in the meantime. I've only been burned once on backorders and that was on McClelland 5100 Red Cake that was starting to get scarce...who knew.
You might also want to check out the Amphora Pipe Kit that P&C is offering for $20. You get a pouch of their new Virginia Blend, a Czech tool, pipe cleaners and a briar Vittoria pipe. The "stuff" is worth roughly $10 so you are getting a decent small billiard briar for about the price of a corncob pipe. And sign up for their email notifications and catalog. Last saturday they had the a 20% off sitewide sale announced thru email and I bought the kit for only $16.
Just keep those other items unavailable at P&C in your smokingpipes cart. I'm sure you'll find a reason to bump the total past the $95 for free shipping soon enough. You missed a Bulk Tobacco sale they had like 3 weeks ago, so you should sign up for their emails too. Right now they have Drucquer blends 15% off.
If you're looking for fall seasonal blends, a favorite for many is Sleepy Hollow, which is only available by phone order thru Strauss tobacconists at certain times of the year. It's an aromatic, a bit pricey and you have to pay shipping too, but trust me it's worth it....fantastic stuff.

 

[mikefu]

One of the great things about pipes and cigars site is that you can place an order which contains back ordered items, and then they ship when those items come back into stock. That allows you to get over a free shipping minimum, or in this case, the free pipe minimum and still get the blend you want, just delaying your gratification a bit. If you don’t have enough pipes to try all those tobaccos in without smoking several different strongly flavored ones in the same pipe back to back, the free pipe is great. But if you’ve got enough pipes, don’t worry about it and get more tobacco that you want to try.

 

[alexnc]

I would forgo the free pipe - it's free for a good reason

 

[scloyd]

If I only had a couple of pipes in my collection...then I would go for the free pipe. Who knows, it might be a decent smoker. When I first started smoking a pipe I had two pipes and I bought this starter kit and it turns out that the pipe was okay. I still smoke it occasionally. If you don't need the pipe...then skip it.
edit...I must admit I thought the Lane Black Raspberry was horrible.

 

[Chasing Embers]

I would skip the pipe and go where they have the tobacco you want. After the IPSD 2017 P&C debacle, I won't mess with ordering anything on backorder.

 

[bnichols23]

Concur with everybody else -- definitely go for the leaf!
Bill

 

[crashthegrey]

Forget the pipe. You'll enjoy the tobacco more. And you'll find pipes you like better by picking them out.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Yeh, putting your hopes and dreams on a freebie offer is not very smart. And, it is relying on that marketing scam too much has led to folks flaming out on here. If both retail places had the same tobaccos at almost the same price, it might tip the scale towards the freebie thingy, but to change what you want to get the free thing... Well, I will bank on you being disappointed in the end.

 

[scloyd]

Question...how many pipes do you currently own? If you have several pipes, then skip the free pipe. If you have two pipes, then take the free pipe. Also, depends on your budget. If you can afford $138 for all of the blends that you want plus buy a pipe that you want, skip the pipe. Either way your going to have 20-25 new blends to try...you'll have fun.

 

[saltedplug]

P&C bashing on the forums has been going on for as long as I can remember but thankfully not so much anymore here. Anyway, I stopped ordering from them but even if I had not I would have been leery about their backorder option. Being charged for virtual items involves another level of record keeping and short temper-perhaps theirs but certainly mine.

 

[texasfiremedic]

Thank you all for your thoughts on this subject. I have a few pipes from my grandfather and a few from my dad. I have 8 in total a few Missouri Meerschaums and one Meerschaums. I will probably be going with the Smoking pipes like most of you have ordered and trying a Latakia heavy blend like recommended.

 

[scloyd]

Sounds like a wise decision.

 

[pepesdad1]

Adding to the others...tobacco, tobacco, tobacco! You can always get another pipe...tobacco...nope.

 

[deleon]

You can get a great quality price online, skip the free pipe and enjoy the tobacco.. the more tobacco the merrier!

 

[mso489]

My habit is to focus on one purchase at a time. With tobacco that usually means two or three blends, tins, tubs or pouches at a time, or singly when bought in groups. Sorry, that's a fancy way of saying keep it simple. You can get some excellent pipes on PC, but mostly I'd buy them one at a time, not part of a kit or sale. I think you'll be happier with the purchases, and take you time. Shop a lot to buy a little.

 

[rdavid]

I will probably be going with the Smoking pipes like most of you have ordered and trying a Latakia heavy blend like recommended.
Yes, yes on the above advice to try Ten Russians and/or Pirate Kake. I’m a Latakia addict and these are two of my favorites.