pipemakersforum.com

I find that really funny. My husband orders cigars all the time from cigar.com. They are all shipped UPS surepost. Comes UPS to KC and then are delivered by the post office. USPS makes nnoooooo sense at all.

scotties22 wrote:I find that really funny. My husband orders cigars all the time from cigar.com. They are all shipped UPS surepost. Comes UPS to KC and then are delivered by the post office. USPS makes nnoooooo sense at all.

Yes, I order tons of tobac online, no prob, most of it comes through the USPS. According to the guy at the PO they aren't allowed to ship tobacco but they don't know it is tobacco unless you tell them and if you tell them they can't ship it. Go figure the idioticy which affects the USA

staffwalker wrote:

scotties22 wrote:I find that really funny. My husband orders cigars all the time from cigar.com. They are all shipped UPS surepost. Comes UPS to KC and then are delivered by the post office. USPS makes nnoooooo sense at all.

Yes, I order tons of tobac online, no prob, most of it comes through the USPS. According to the guy at the PO they aren't allowed to ship tobacco but they don't know it is tobacco unless you tell them and if you tell them they can't ship it. Go figure the idioticy which affects the USA

Tobacco can be sent through USPS, but it has to be sent to someone that is 21 year of age. That and a lot of info is on here https://www.usps.com/ship/domestic-toba ... ctions.htm

Now of you want to jump through hoops and dance a jig on the moon, try shipping a firearm. There are many ways, but seems that the clerks that are supposed to know at UPS and USPS don't know.

To keep you guys up to date: I just mailed Vincent to get in touch with him.

If all goes well, I should be able to drop down to Corbion on May 4th or May 5th and pick up the order!

Massis wrote:To keep you guys up to date: I just mailed Vincent to get in touch with him.

If all goes well, I should be able to drop down to Corbion on May 4th or May 5th and pick up the order!

Woohoo!

Good new guys, Vincent replied.

His mail was rather short and obvious, stating basicly "yeah sure, just drop by whenever you want"

Comrades!

I didn't know that I'm living only 90 minutes away from the end of the world.
And I did not know that the end of the world is so beautyful.

Vincent Manil is running his tobacco-factory there. I met him today. Unfortunately he "made" his tobacco yesterday, so he couldn't show me the process itself. He was packeging today (on a Sunday!) in order to meet the enormous demands from overseas. Robin, his son, had to help him. Robin spent one year of his young life in Montana, so I had somebody to explain everything to me in English.



The cutting-machine. It runs in 3 different speeds: Slow for broadcuts, a bit quicker for medium cuts and fast for fine cuts.

It's toasted!
After cutting the tobacco gets roasted/toasted in this with old solid fuel heated, rotating drum from 1856:





As all kinds of reliable machinery this device is German made, of course ...



The tobacco is all the same. The breed was introduced to Belgium from Connecticut in the middle of the 19th century, Vincent told me. The feelds are about six miles away from Vincent's place on River Semois surrounded by deep beechwood forests. This once was Charlemagne's favourite hunting aerea, which I can follow completely, although the emperor was a non-smoker ...
Nothing added, no preservatives, just zero. To prevent the tobacco from moulding it has to be very dry when packed.

Vincent and Robin packing:





Beeing that dry the tobacco burns down very quickly. I reckon that a full bowl takes about one third of the time compared to an ordinary tobacco. And: It's a hell of a shot of nicotine, my goodness! Very interesting because totally different from anything I had in my pipe before. I'd blend some Latakia in it, though ...

Vincent and Robin both are very friendly caracters, and I sure gonna return to this end of the world soon.
I knew that those Belgians are making tremendous hams and sausages, and that they have the longest beer-menus in the world



... but that they are also growing and processing tobacco in those remote forests in the Ardennes was absolutely new for me. What a nice experience in my old days ...!



That's Vincent and me in front of his gorgeous shop (with the Latakia-Express reflected in the shop-window )

Cheerio!
Walle

Thank you for posting this, Walle. It makes me want to order even more tobacco!

PS Walle: that's what we call an "ordinary beer list" in belgium. A long one is at least 100 types of beer, preferrably over 250. There are nearly 180 breweries in Belgium, producing well over 1000 different kinds of beer

What an adventure, Walle! Thanks a lot for posting photos. Vincent must a super cool guy. He even e-mailed me to let me know that you were there visiting.

Polls are closed. That's no more orders, folks. I'm awaiting a few order finalizations and then... done!

I'll post final costs and details soon.

UberHuberMan wrote:
Polls are closed. That's no more orders, folks.

Darn. I was going to order a few pounds, and planned to tip you a hundred million dollars for your trouble.

Oh well.

LatakiaLover wrote:

UberHuberMan wrote:
Polls are closed. That's no more orders, folks.

Darn. I was going to order a few pounds, and planned to tip you a hundred million dollars for your trouble.

Oh well.

If that's the case....I will sell you everything I ordered and David and I will split the tip

scotties22 wrote:

LatakiaLover wrote:

UberHuberMan wrote:
Polls are closed. That's no more orders, folks.

Darn. I was going to order a few pounds, and planned to tip you a hundred million dollars for your trouble.

Oh well.

If that's the case....I will sell you everything I ordered and David and I will split the tip

Works for me!

I appreciate your offer to move the deadline, but wouldn't dream of causing you any inconvenience. Thanks anyway.

LatakiaLover wrote:I appreciate your offer to move the deadline, but wouldn't dream of causing you any inconvenience. Thanks anyway.

Oh we wouldn't move the deadline. No exceptions there, I'm afraid, but scottie would be overjoyed to fulfill your order with the contents of hers. It's quite large, you see. You can send that multi-million dollar tip to my PayPal account anytime.

HHHEEEYYYYY....I feel like I just lost my tobacco aaaaannnnddddd my part of the tip!!!

scotties22 wrote:HHHEEEYYYYY....I feel like I just lost my tobacco aaaaannnnddddd my part of the tip!!!

Oh, I'll split it with you, Scottie. No worries there. I just wanna roll around in it once before I send you your half.

If you're involved in the group buy, check your PM for details.

I've added a list of those whose total amount I've received in the OP.

If you've sent your full total and don't see your name on the list, please contact me immediately via PM.

I planned on dropping down to Vincent on May 4th, but just got word from my employer that he wants me to coach a team of IT-students in a hackathon (22h straight of mobile app development) from May 3rd 1:00pm till May 4th 3:00pm...

Trying to hold him off (I have a life outside of work you know...) but I might have to comply. In that case I'll do my best to drop down there on the 5th, but it might take another week...