Which cost more in the long run - cigars or pipes

Hiker007

I was sitting this evening smoking a pipe with some Out of Office blend. I paid $3.77 for the tin. The bowl lasted me over a hour and half. In addition, I dumped out a part of the bowl that I did not completely smoke. I was thinking to myself, I wonder how much money I could save if I smoked my pipe more and less cigars. Do you think it is cheaper to smoke a pipe? Has anyone switched from cigars to pipes to save money?

PappyJoe

Are you being rhetorical?

You paid $3.77 for the tin. Depending on how often you smoke a pipe of that blend, it could last you anywhere from 5 days to a month or longer. A decent handmade cigar will cost anywhere from $5 - $8 in my opinion and last about a hour. 

Say you get 25 bowls from the tin. That breaks down to about 15¢ a bowl that last for over an hour. Now compare that to say $5 an hour for the cigar.

xDutchx

I agree with PappyJoe. Cigars are much more expensive in the long run, especially so if you limit the number of pipes you own to a specific number. Some pipe smokers will not exceed a specific number of pipes, and if they see one they would like to purchase, they will pick one from their collection to sell.

Doing it that way, you for the most part spend most of your money on tinned tobacco, and we all know how much further a tin of tobacco will go, compared to a cigar.

If however, you are constantly collecting pipes, you could easily spend as much on pipes as you would cigars, if you were a cigar smoker exclusively.

Hiker007

@PappyJoe I had not none the math yet. Wow, what a difference .15 vs $5. I do have to keep in mind that most tins are not $3.77, that one was on clearance from P&C. Do you think that it is common to get 25 bowls out of one tin? I have not yet smoked a whole tin of one blend.

motie2

Too many variables: What pipes? (Cobs, Grabows, Tsuges, Butz-Choquins, Savinellis, what?)

What size collection? (Mine or @ghostsofpompeii's?) 

Then, what pipe tobacco? What quality of cigar? (How much cigar do you leave / How much dottle?)

How often smoking: Daily? Occasionally?

Too many variables. It can be worked out either way or even.

PappyJoe

@hiker007 - I believe the amount of tobacco we were given at the last long smoke competition was 2 grams. Using that weight, if you have a 50 gram tin then 25 bowls would be reasonable. I recently bought a 1.75 oz. tin (roughly 50 grams) of Davidoff Flake Medallions for $14.95 at a local B&M. If I use 2 grams per bowl, that would be 25. The cost for that breaks down to roughly 49¢ a bowl. Still a lot less than a cigar.

Even if you use an extra large bowl and only get 10 bowls out of a 1.75 oz. tin, that would only be $1.49 per bowl and cheaper than a cigar.

ghostsofpompeii

Still seems to me no matter what the variables are a tin of pipe tobacco is going to be the best value over a good cigar. Even a $10.00 tin of better quality tobacco than the Out Of Office blends. (Not knocking them I really enjoy both "Civic Duty and Gone Fishing). I think if you enjoy smoking both a pipe and cigar - but due to budget constraints you have to choose one over the other, I'd say you save more money reaching for the pipe rather than the cigar.

motie2

Yeah, and when you are through smoking your pipe, you have a pipe. 

When you are through smoking your cigar, you have an abomination.

Londy3

LOL, awesome thread. I think $5 cigar is low, I'd go at least $8 or $10. The cost of a pipe really should be factored in though. So, you would have to average out common pipe purchases not the $600+ ones that most people probably don't have. More like $80? Then add a time factor of say one year. Then let's compare. Quick someone recalculate the math. Im on my mobile and can't believe I can post, usually can't on mobile devices.

pwkarch

I have an opinion here. Since the first of the year I have smoked maybe 6 or so cigars whereas I was always good for 5 to maybe 7 a week unless there was a special occasion. I smoke reasonably expensive cigars, at least $8 to $10 a stick. I bought a ton of cigars over the years and spent some bucks doing so. In fact I have over a hundred empty wooden cigar boxes on shelves in the basement. I also have around 500 really good cigars in food quality containers with Boveda bags, at perfect temperature and perfect humidity that just sit in the closet waiting to be called upon. 

Since the first of the year I have jumped back into my pipe hobby FULL force which for some time took a back seat to my cigars. I am enjoying these pipe experiences greatly again. As such I have spent quite a few bucks on tobaccos of all sorts to "cellar" and enjoy. I can say without hesitation, once my tobacco selections were purchased, and I got my "cellar" stocked, I am spending considerably less for my pipe usage. And now that I have been back in the game here, I am enjoying it more than my cigars. So a two time winner as I see it.

My only problem is what do I do with all these great cigars?

jfreedy

@pwkarch -- Sell the cigars and buy more pipe weed!   

jfreedy

@Hiker007 -- Unless you exclusively smoke Dunhills and Castellos using flaming $100 bills to light them then pipe smoking will be cheaper. I have two humidors (still with cigars) and fully bought into the cigar craze a few years back. I enjoy both, but overall I'm a pipe guy!

daveinlax

For me and my collection it's pipes by a mile.

 I'm a cigar enthusiast and I've haven't been been buying my daily cigars but smoking down my cooladore of hundreds of cigars I've bought from shops all over the country been handed at events like cigar dinners, The Big Smoke and at instore events and have been kindly gifted.   

Pyrate

Aye Lads, one ingredient in the cost formula missing be the cost o the pipe. A typical pipe smoker starts out wit inexpensive pipes $10-$50 range. Then as we become more sophisticated we move the price range up somewhat to more of the $100 - $200 range. Adding the cost o the pipe into the equation will tax this poor Pyrates abilities beyond me comprehension... 

I think I'll just light up a pipe and sit back to watch wot the math experts come up wit...

drac2485

I smoke both cigars and pipes.  From a tobacco point of view pipes win hands down.  The cost of pipe tobacco and the length/amount of smokes versus 1 smoke per cigar, can't be beat.  However, I will  say that I probably have spent more on smoking pipes in the long wrong thanks to PAD and TAD, I have about 150 pipes and over 80 pounds on tobacco, and we won't discuss how much that costs.  I stopped buying cigars a couple years ago as I am trying to smoke my stash down and honestly I prefer pipes due to the cost of tobacco and being able to judge a smoke time.  However, I have spent quite a bit on cigars and the cost has moved me more to smoking pipes because at least I have a pipe when I'm done not just a pile of stinky ash.

pwkarch

@Pyrate

In my own case I have never spent over maybe $50 for a pipe. In fact, most of my pipes are less expensive than that. I have many from some years ago, and these days I buy "estates" and bring them back to life. one of my favorites are MM Corn Cobs of which I have probably ten or so. I am a firm believer in the quality experience out of a smoke in a cob from the very first bowl. The cobs represent a large portion of my pipe rotation. The only downside in my opinion are the stems which with any regular use get bite marks and such. However, MM sells replacement bits quite economically.

My point being, in my case, the largest expense is the tobacco that I order. Even that is slowing down as I have amassed a nice "cellar" at this point, ordering only that which is being replaced, or a new blend I want to try. So in my case, the cost of tobacco exceeds that spent on pipes.

ghostsofpompeii

@pwkarch I find that I actually like the estate pipes I restored back to life more than the expensive Peterson or Nording pipes in my collection. I can't help but feel a sense of mystery to the pipes as I have no idea what their history is. Who owned them? What did they do for a living? Why did they sell them? And most important of all ... did they have leprosy or some sort of lip fungus?

Bonanzadriver

If you look at it from a "Go Forward From Today Basis", not taking into account the $$ invested in pipes, racks, storage containers, refurbin materials and supplies, then yes, smoking a pipe for me is cheaper than cigars, even though many of the ones I smoke are cheap curly heads on the golf course.

But this conversation reminds me of trying to justify the money spent on the feeding and caring of an airplane.  There really aren't any. 

So.....

Smoke em if ya got em. 

jfreedy

@ghostsofpompeii -- Hilarious!! I think just about every new owner of an estate pipe secretly worries about this.

mseddon

Ah, the pipe itself, my friends, is a work of art that happens to let you burn tobacco and smoke it. It has a story. It has history, or soon will. It can speak of far off lands like Nashville. Like all good symbols it is polyvalent and multivocal or multivalent and polyvocal. Or something.

So, you can't count the cost of the pipe.  And even the most expensive pipe tobacco will be cheaper per smoke than even a reasonably priced cigar.

ghostsofpompeii

@mseddon I swallowed a chicken bone once and became polyvocal.

ghostsofpompeii

As a Pipe smoker I've spent a great deal of money building up my cellar for fear of the impending FDA Deeming Regulation tobacco apocalypse. And since pipe tobacco can be easily stored in Mason jars and remain fresh or allowed to age indefinitely long term storage isn't an issue. But can the same apply to cigars? Can people fill Mason jars full of cigars to maintain their freshness for the long haul?   

motie2

The probably could, but instead, they'll spend a fortune on cigar-specific humidors.

pwkarch

@ghostsofpompeii , @motie2

There certainly is a cost and a concerted effort to maintain cigars "viability". Although I have not purchased any cigars in almost a year now, I do need to buy Bovida bags and fairly often check about 12 food grade containers in which they rest and age, To not do so would be to lose a very expensive investment. HOWEVER, even with the purchase of the humidity devices, and the time effort to take care of them, the "Pipe Life" is still less expensive and I believe more enjoyable.

Woodsman

I've really never been into cigars but my friends who are spend a lot more than I do.  

motie2

@pwkarch -- Hear! Hear!