When Did Specialty Blend Tobaccos Become a Thing?

[brian64]

Anything that's not a thing is nothing at all.

 

[mrmachado]

I don't know if having an amazing variety of tobacco available makes you spoiled and less excited.
But I know is that I have a pitiful variety available here, and have to use risky methods to obtain great tobacco...
So, each time I'm buying great tobacco, it's a great adrenaline rush.
Wouldn't have this adrenaline rush if I had plenty of options available here...

 

[Chasing Embers]

B&Ms have done mail order for decades, and I was ordering blends directly from C&D for several years before the Laudasi buyout.

 

[mso489]

Not arguing this, just reporting, but Costco has made a business plan partly by not offering too many different brand options. By their lights, people buy more, and quicker, if they don't have to ruminate over six different choices. Remembering my dad's pipe habits in the 50's and 60's -- he only smoked Granger -- I do remember that he could buy it scores of places in his work place neighborhood at newsstands and drugstores, at groceries around home, along with fair quality pipes at downtown newsstands. He usually didn't go to a pipe shop. What was missing in vast variety was compensated in distribution and a never-ending supply. No one was chasing around distant sources to get some prized blend. They already had their blend.

 

[mikethompson]

Its just strange to think, as someone who came into this just in the past few years, that there was a time you'd find a few blends at your local shop and be happy about it.
Come to think of it, my local B&M only has a few blends, but that is Canada for you.

 

[Chasing Embers]

A B&M was where I found Black Frigate twenty years ago.

 

[olkofri]

Oh, man! That was my first car! 1974 Kubelwagen. :clap:

 

[renfield]

Hey, there’s a car in that picture!

 

[sablebrush52]

Its just strange to think, as someone who came into this just in the past few years, that there was a time you'd find a few blends at your local shop and be happy about it.

That might have been true for gas stations and drugstores, but tobacconists had plenty of options. Back then I mostly ignored the tins because they were pricey compared to the house made blends, and you had many of those to choose from. And if you didn't quite like what was for sale, your tobacconist would make a blend to order and keep it on file for you when you came in for a refill. There were hundreds of such blends available, and many tobacconists did a brisk trade in mail order. Kramer's was hardly unique. And there were shelves full of domestic and imported tinned blends. I could walk into a tobacconist's shop and pick up a tin of Balkan Sobranie, 759, Capstan Blue, Three Nuns, Amphora, Dunhill, etc, etc any time I so desired. McClelland didn't yet exist, much less C&D or Hearth and Home. But if you're thinking that we didn't have a wealth of choices, that's not the case, not the case in the least.

 

[warren]

I've no interest in smoking various blends. I'm one of those who has a couple "go to's" and absolutely no interest in finding more. Just not that adventurous. I fully understand that there are those still searching, some who are driven to try everything they see, and some who are just interested in what each blend tried has to offer. This is what makes the site so damned interesting.
I will readily admit to getting caught up in the "War Horse" discussion (argument? battle?) and I'm now a happy smoker of a couple SToP's blends. So, under certain circumstances I will drift out of my comfort zone and try something new.

 

[woodsroad]

Warren, you just gave life to our slogan: "Standard Tobacco: The Blends You've Eventually Learned To Enjoy Over Lo, These Many Years"

 

[brian64]

I will readily admit to getting caught up in the "War Horse" discussion (argument? battle?)

Personally I favor the term brouhaha as being most appropriate in instances such as the Great War Horse Uproar of 20xx whatever year that was.

 

[ashdigger]

^^ Very True!! I remember it being a dick measuring contest of biblical proportions.

 

[warren]

brouhaha

An apt descriptor for sure.
I'll never forget old ... ah ... er ... what's his name. He probably was the best advertising ploy I've ever seen, made the blends "must try".

 

[brian64]

I'm so glad to know I'm not the only one who wondered if maybe it was all a marketing ploy.
If so...genius.
EDIT: Come to think of it...makes me wonder about this latest label business too. Hmmm...naw, couldn't be. They're not that clever are they?

 

[warren]

I don't believe they orchestrated the "brouhaha." Not enough brain power total in that company to originate such a ploy. They were just lucky enough to innocently involve a "nay sayer", who wouldn't quit. They were smart enough to feed it though. :worship:

 

[seldom]

When did "a thing" become a thing? I mean, is that even a thing?

A thing is a Norse meeting place. viking-thing-discovered-sherwood-forest

 

[mikethompson]

But if you're thinking that we didn't have a wealth of choices, that's not the case, not the case in the least.

No, not at all Jesse, but maybe 100 or so years ago if you didn't live in a big city?

 

[prairiedruid]

Very True!! I remember it being a dick measuring contest of biblical proportions.

Kids let this be a lesson for you; never measure your dick with a bible. The paper cuts alone will seem like hell.

 

[pappymac]

No, not at all Jesse, but maybe 100 or so years ago if you didn't live in a big city?

That would have only been 1919 or so.
I don't know about the number of blends available, but I remember the early 1960s when just about everyplace you would want to shop at carried pipes and pipe tobacco - drugstore, gas stations, grocery and convenience stores and department stores like Sears, Penny's and Montgomery Ward. I was too young to smoke back then, but the one grandfather I knew was a pipe smoker and he never ran out of tobacco.