I appreciate you sharing that.
A small part of me has to wonder if the pipe tobacco market isn't meant to be more counterintuitive than it is. Rocky Patel now sells cigars at a hundred bucks a stick. A decent pipe cutter runs $50+, but you can find plenty that go three figures.
Bruce Lee struggled to pay his rent as a martial arts teacher until he happened upon his first Hollywood client, who told him to raise his prices... tenfold. Sure, that took Bruce Lee out of the market for 99% of martial arts students, but he had no problem finding a few enough clients to not only keep the lights on, but to prosper.
Maybe this makes me a pipe tobacco heretic, but I'd like to see special release tins up to $100 or even $200, to set a real premium ceiling. And personally, were Capstan $30 rather than $20, I'd still buy it at about the same frequency. Were it $40, I might slow down, but the novelty of it would still compel me.
The first few years I smoked, I cheaped out. I bought bulk rather than tin, I bought inexpensive pipes, and the one time I sprung for something nice it was a Corona lighter. After a layoff prompted a hiatus and I've gotten back to it, I've loved exploring the world of tin tobaccos, but I do find it strange that there's a particular ceiling in terms of quality because of this invisible ideal that nobody would buy anything nicer than [insert product here].
If you can't tell, I'm a prudish dick. And sorry to all if these rambles seem off-topic. But to me, they're related in a linear sense. (My only hesitation regarding
Monthly Car Rental Dubai is that the price seems too good for the quantity in the tin.)