Go Back   Cigar Weekly Community Forums and Discussion Groups > Smoking Post > Cigar Talk

Cigar Talk A place for cigar enthusiasts to discuss our hobby, legal cigars and related stuff.

 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Prev Previous Post   Next Post Next
Old 03-13-2002, 01:38 PM   #1
flipflop
Contributing Editor
CW Butt Whisperer
Herf God
 
flipflop's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Marietta, Georgia
Posts: 50,560
Like most of us do, when I go to a herf, I bring some sticks for trading and passing out to my friends. But here’s something that bothered me.

I was invited to two separate herfs by two separate friends. I knew only one or two other person at each I attended. As usual there was trading going on and that’s where the problems began. Everything I brought was an isom, as is my usual custom at a herf. Most people whom I met and showed what I had to trade were quite “interested.” (I could tell by the way their eyes lit up and they started drooling into my traveldors.)

In the vast majority of cases though they thought it was perfectly fine to offer me a domestic in return for the isom they had selected. Now to be fair, some did offer high premium, harder to get domestics like Opus X, Hemingway Short Story, etc and I had no problem with that. But most offered stuff that any decently-stocked tobacconist carries in their store. In other words, they picked out from me sticks like Partagas PC, BBF, RA 898V or VR Famoso and offered a Fuente 8-5-8, Indian Tabac Beli, Chateau Fuente, Padron 4000, etc. in return. And they weren’t kidding. They were quite serious. After “trading” a couple of them even told their buddies to come over and deal with me as I had some “great stuff.”

After this happened seven or eight times, I “closed up shop” and ceased my trading. My feeling was simply that after going to the time, expense and trouble of obtaining my isoms….why should I trade for cigars that I can easily get by walking into any decent cigar store and laying down some $$?

Now I’m not amiss to gifting occasionally some isoms or fine domestics to someone who needs help, like a budget-crunched college kid or someone who has lost his/her job. But most of the people at these herfs were people who could afford to get isoms if they wanted to go do the work necessary. Most were professionals who made good incomes; and many of the ones who gave me a domestic for an isom, I later found out did have isoms as well as ways of obtaining them.

In short, it came back to me (through my friends) that several people thought I was a snob or prick (there’s your opening MetsFan) when I refused to trade anymore for their domestics. I simply felt I was being taken advantage of.

So…in your opinion, was I wrong or was I correct in shutting down my trading?

Have any of you faced similar situations? How did you handle it?


Sacred cows make the best hamburger. --Mark Twain
__________________
"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats."
-- H. L. Mencken
"I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you."
-- Ghengis Khan
flipflop is offline   Reply With Quote
 

Bookmarks
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -8. The time now is 03:14 AM.