Why are the Originals Always Better?

[buroak]

This discussion makes me recall R.D. Field's brief article on Dunhills of yesterday and today. As an aside, I feel a swell of pride when I read Field's account of an exchange between Bill Taylor and Richard Dunhill:

"Why is this in the reject bin?"
"Because the sandblast is too deep and uneven."
"This pipe has character. Send it to America. Americans know good pipes!"

An Englishman crediting Americans with good, discerning taste is a rare enough thing.

 

[sablebrush52]

Most of this is in peoples heads. I do not lust for the metallic twang of a Swanson's TV dinner, but there was a sense of fun about it at the time. I may miss that fun and associate it with a crappy product. We love to venerate craftsmanship, for instance the handmade VS machine made fight that goes on even though there's no empirical evidence to support that one is innately superior to the other. We just love the idea of the "personalness" that handcrafting signifies. People of means used to select their coachwork and the fittings to be installed on the chassis of their car. Cars were made to order. That doesn't make them innately better than cars made today. And a lot of people think that the Peterson version of Escudo was better than Cope's.

 

[buroak]

People of means used to select their coachwork and the fittings to be installed on the chassis of their car. Cars were made to order. That doesn't make them innately better than cars made today.

The long run of Top Gear (UK) has taught me that the term "hand made" is not a watchword for quality in discussions of contemporary cars. My own experience with pipes tells me that hand made can be good, bad, or indifferent.

 

[smokertruck]

"I don't care what anyone says, no one can recall exactly what some long lost tobacco blend tasted like 30-40 years ago and to rant on about how a new reincarnation of a given blend not being as good is just plain horse hockey."
NOT SO - i am 70 -remember both 3nuns & erinmore - true 3 nuns without perique is different but erinmore mixture is not anything like the original & erinmore flake is close but no cigar - also i do remember erinmore of the 60's - as fruitier than the flake of today & the mixture is an outright bastardization.
i do smoke the flake being as close as i can get but still i miss that fruity flavor left on the palate not there today even though the flake is better than passable but ... just ...
wait until you are 70 then ....complaints... complaints... complaints - nothing is as good as 2015 was - especially that 3 nuns & erinmore ...
regards to all