One Year Anniversary of EGR in Tins

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JimInks

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Last year, on December 1, Sutliff announced the release of Edward G. Robinson's Pipe Blend in 1.5 ounce tins. Though I started the campaign to get EGR in tins, it was our fellow pipe smokers who e-mailed Sutliff in droves that convinced them to make it available in the tin. Thanks to the work everybody did, and to Sutliff in listening to their customers. I thought today was worth celebrating EGR!
 
I've been wanting to try EGR but never have, it seems like over the course of 40 plus years behind the pipe I'd have done so. I'll need to order a tin soon.
 
RobJ":1bngqtez said:
I've been wanting to try EGR but never have, it seems like over the course of 40 plus years behind the pipe I'd have done so. I'll need to order a tin soon.
Yeah, youse mug. Ya should do dat, see. If'n yez don't, it's gonna be curtains fer ya, see. Myeah!!!

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Definitely worth celebrating. I would probably never have tried it if I had had to commit to a whole tub, regardless of JimInks' favorable comments and my admiration for Edward G. Robinson. :D Having bought a tin several months ago, I can say that I am not sure I really like it, but I am sure that I am glad to have had the chance to try it. I admire Sutliff for taking action based on customer feedback. Would that more companies would do the same.
 
JimInks":ju9ztfuw said:
Yeah, youse mug. Ya should do dat, see. If'n yez don't, it's gonna be curtains fer ya, see. Myeah!!!
:lol!: Thanks for the laugh! It's been years since I've watched that cartoon. What a maroon... myeah!
 
fsu92john":xh4e9f03 said:
Definitely worth celebrating. I would probably never have tried it if I had had to commit to a whole tub, regardless of JimInks' favorable comments and my admiration for Edward G. Robinson. :D  Having bought a tin several months ago, I can say that I am not sure I really like it, but I am sure that I am glad to have had the chance to try it. I admire Sutliff for taking action based on customer feedback. Would that more companies would do the same.
We don't all enjoy the same blends for sure. Maybe for reasons relating to our similar years of experience smoking pipes, if Jim likes a blend chances are pretty good I will too so I will give this one a try.

I'm pretty keen on Sutliff blends, 1849 and Kasimir are staples for me and it's good to know they do listen to their customers.
 
Funny you should mention it, I just watched it a couple of weeks ago and really enjoyed it. I hadn't seen that movie in over 30 years. I think it was on turner classic movies?
 
Jim I read somewhere you were curious about what a Rico smoked....I read his granddaughter say she thought he smoked dunhill tobacco. You probably know this already though. I can't imagine EGR smoking EGR. I can just imagine him going in to the tobacconist and picking up his favorite blend with his finger to his mouth...shhh...
 
Bugsahearn":a3qv7wbs said:
Jim I read somewhere you were curious about what a Rico smoked....I read his granddaughter say she thought he smoked dunhill tobacco. You probably know this already though. I can't imagine EGR smoking EGR. I can just imagine him going in to the tobacconist and picking up his favorite blend with his finger to his mouth...shhh...
I don't know what Robinson smoked before EGR, but since he personally supervised and approved the blend when it was created in 1946, I figure he must have smoked it.
 
He might have smoked it but I think his involvement was purely part of the marketing to sell his name as a brand. I see EGR smoking higher end tobacco and according to his granddaughter he smoked dunhill. I personally can't see him smoking a drug store tobacco with his name on it.
 
Whether EGR smoked this or just lent his name to its marketing was, I think, the subject of commentary in an old The Pipe Smoker's Ephemeris. Tough bananas, though. I'm too lazy to look it up.

I just popped a tin and I like it. Love the scent, both lit and unlit. This is what constitutes an all-day smoke for me, not some dense flake or latakia bomb. Every type of tabak has its uses, it seems, and I love the old American OTCs, especially the "premium" ones, a group to which I would include EGR.

And BTW, I assume everyone here has seen The Stranger, in which EGR smokes a pipe virtually non-stop throughout the movie?
 
I usually only keep one aro or semi-aro open at a time, as I smoke them only rarely. I picked up some EGR in an order a while back, and have had it "on deck" since then. As soon as I manage to kill these last few bowls of Firedance (a fine snuff blend, not so much in a pipe), it's Robinson.

If anyone manages to track any info down from Ephemeris, please post it - I'd be more than a little interested to learn a bit more.
 
idbowman":s21otwkr said:
If anyone manages to track any info down from Ephemeris, please post it - I'd be more than a little interested to learn a bit more.
That's not easily done, as you know if you're familiar with the worthy publication.
 
I initially thought I'd never smoked EGR during my misspent youth but I was wrong. My son noticed the can I bought and asked if it tasted like the old stuff so I asked why he'd ask. His response was that I must have smoked it since he found an old box of mine in the attic with empty pouches and tins of EGR and a few others I smoked years ago, so I asked about the box and was told he'd tossed it out when he was tidying up the attic. Nice. I wonder what else he tossed.

I really like EGR and agree with Mr. Burley, this is a nice no frills, not complex, puttering in the yard all day blend. It has a nice taste and the room note is very nice. I find myself craving it right after work and before supper so I've been enjoying it at least once per day in an old Grabow.
 
Bugsahearn":fsoo9rhk said:
He might have smoked it but I think his involvement was purely part of the marketing to sell his name as a brand. I see EGR smoking higher end tobacco and according to his granddaughter he smoked dunhill. I personally can't see him smoking a drug store tobacco with his name on it.
I can see Robinson smoking Dunhill products, but I can see him smoking drug store tobaccos. They didn't have the stigma then that some attach to them in recent years. Bing Crosby was known to smoke drug store tobacco, too. So were other famous, cultured stars.

EGR's grand daughter may remember him smoking Dunhill (you have a source for that? I'd like to see it), and as I said, I can certainly believe that, but I doubt he'd spend the time to personally supervise the creation of a blend with his name on it if he didn't like it, or wasn't going to smoke it at least some of the time.
 
RobJ":9b93vltg said:
I initially thought I'd never smoked EGR during my misspent youth but I was wrong. My son noticed the can I bought and asked if it tasted like the old stuff so I asked why he'd ask. His response was that I must have smoked it since he found an old box of mine in the attic with empty pouches and tins of EGR and a few others I smoked years ago, so I asked about the box and was told he'd tossed it out when he was tidying up the attic. Nice. I wonder what else he tossed.

I really like EGR and agree with Mr. Burley, this is a nice no frills, not complex, puttering in the yard all day blend. It has a nice taste and the room note is very nice. I find myself craving it right after work and before supper so I've been enjoying it at least once per day in an old Grabow.
I smoke it once a day, and like you, I find myself craving it at times. In fact, I'm smoking a bowl now in a Savinelli that has been seasoned with EGR over the past couple years. If I hadn't built a cellar before I started smoking EGR, I'd smoke it more than just once a day, even though my preference leans towards VaPers and straight Viriginias.
 
It's called getting a paycheck jim. Maybe Edward g Robinson was personally involved in the blends development, but I'd be willing to the bet the extent of that was him choosing one of a couple blends they'd developed for him to pick from. Plaster his face on it and use his name to sell it and bam money in the bank. It's a racket. Robinson was a collector of high-grade briar pipes.

Hello Francesca, I just found this wonderful site. I have always admired your Grandfather, not only for his fine acting but for the man he was in reality. I have a question that I have not seen addressed in the other postings. I am a pipe and cigar smoker, as your grandfather was, and I'm curious, what happened to his pipe collection and what pipe tobacco and cigar brands did he favor? I once owned a tobacco shop and had a framed picture of your Grandad holding a cigar up as he contemplated it. I was very proud of it but it has alas disappeared. Thank you for any information you may supply me.
Doug Cotton
03 June 2005 - Springdale, Arkansas
Response: Dear Doug,
He had a wonderful pipe collection and stopped smoking pipes later in life..
And then only smoked Havana cigars (some even being pre-Castro) and Pall-Mall cigarettes.
Unfortunately, my step-grandmother sold his pipe collection years ago...some ended up in the Debbie Reynolds Museum of Hollywood artifacts in Las Vegas.
He had a humidor at Dunhill in Beverly Hills (as well as one at home) He also smoked a couple of different blends of pipe tobacco from Dunhill.
He allowed a pipe tobacco company to put out an EGR blend - which is still being sold in some select stores.
Romeo y Julieta, Punch Punch, MonteCristo and Upmann were but a few of the brands of cigars he enjoyed..I don't remember the numbers..


Thank You,

Francesca
 
Thanks for the link; there's a lot to read there. I think I'll contact her about it. As I said, I'm not surprised Robinson would have smoked Dunhill or other blends. But, EGR just being a "racket"? Anything is possible, but I guess I'm not quite jaded enough say that since we don't know that for a fact. The grand daughter was born in 1953, so she probably did not know what his earlier smoking habits were. I did find it interesting that she remembered what cigarettes he smoked, not to mention the cigar info. That is pretty good first hand evidence.

I'm also wondering about his pipes. I saw some for sale about a year or more ago, and they weren't well taken care of, which surprised me. I don't know what brands the pipes were, but the lot of four went for about two grand.
 
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