I’m sure this has been discussed before but I couldn’t find anything in the search.

Im 22 and I’ve been snuffing 6 years, started at college taking it every so often, last 2 or 3 years its been a full time thing.

For the first 13 years, I only took it once or twice a year. It was more of a novelty to me then. I’ve been a proper snufftaker for about two and half years now.

about 4 years solid for me. I messed around with a couple of times years before, but didn’t become serious until 08 when I wanted to give up the smokes. I loved the cigs but snuffing is far more enjoyable.

only 2 months … with help from some friends who suggested it as help with the cigarettes and snus. i am glad i finally came around and hope this is a lifetime adventure.

Its been 4 months for me . But it sure has grown on me fast… Also used it to quit smoking, worked like a charm .

12 or 13 years (I can’t remember exactly when I first started, but I believe it was in early 1998)

about a year I suppose

8 years.

Just a couple years.

The past 6 months about the only thing I’ve done is snuff, Before that on and off for about 5 years. edm

On and off for about 40 years. More on than off these days, but I still enjoy my pipes as well.

Wow. I bow to you, ermtony!

10 months although I did use snuff for a time when I was a teenager.

16 years almost 17 not so seriously but pretty consistently. then I tried to use it more seriously sometime in the 2000s the one place I could get any stoped carrying it then went out of bussiness (the ass pony that owned that store would only order snuff for me if I’d basicaly buy the whole lot at once, typical for him then he’d wonder why he didn’t have loyal customers.)

Then I discovered online retailers and have been dedicated since then.

About 5 years.

First pinch 40 years ago, regular use 30 years ago.

Regular user for almost 3 years now.

3.5 years

My first pinch was 7-8 years ago (I can remember that it was Gawith Apricot). Since then there has been periods when I snuffed throughout the day every day and ones when I snuffed once a month. I just don’t have addiction personality. Nevertheless I love snuff and re-started snuffing in the end of last year.

About 4 years

My first snuffing was about 5 years ago or so, as a kind of novelty… But only been since around the start of this year that it’s become a more regular thing.

How did you hear about it?

Oh I’m sure I first saw it in a movie as a kid, but then I don’t know 10 years ago I was goin through the mall and into a pipe shop that use to be there and the owner asked if I’d ever taken snuff. I said I hadn’t and he tapped out a bit of Packard’s Club for me…and all I can say is wow it took my breath away…literally…but even through the initial discomfort I knew it was something I’d like.

5 years for me. Stefan

About 1 year i think

It’ll be two years for me come next month since I first began taking snuff. Although if you want to count the first time I tried “snuff,” I could go back about another year to a silly mistake involving snorting some Copenhagen.

@snuffster - Dunno if that question was general, or meant specifically for me, but I heard about it years ago when a box of Lowen Prise was being passed around at a pub I used to go to regularly, like I say about 5 years ago, and I was offered some… The others weren’t regular snuff users, it seemed to be more of a one-off thing, but I liked it! And got some of my own soon afterwards, and sort of got into it… but it’s been more recently that I’ve ‘done it’ (oo-er!) more regularly.

I also started in June 2009. I first tried what I could get locally… President and Ozona Raspberry. I didn’t really get into snuffing until I tried English snuffs a few months later.

I think I heard about snuff via Charles Dickens, or some other British author from the same era.

I have no idea where I first heard of snuff, honestly. It’s always just been in the background for me. I started using snuff seriously 11 months ago and it’s been a wonderful ride. Never looking back.

I clearly have too much time on my hands. Here’s my entire snuff saga with aspects of UK snuff history (those that I’m aware of) thrown in for good measure. 1959 First snuff experience was Fribourg & Treyer’s Bordeaux, courtesy of a broad minded relative who was an inveterate snuffer and cigar smoker. Occasional pinches continued until about 1963 when my first tin of J&H Wilsons No.1 was bought. 1963/4 Discovered House of Bewlay in nearby town. Huge choice of snuffs sold loose, in bottles and tins. Back then Illingworth and Smiths had easily the largest selection of snuffs and I tried them all. Bought first wooden snuffbox, which recently developed a crack. 1965 First visited Smith’s in Charring Cross, Wix in Piccadilly and Fribourg & Treyer in the Haymarket. Earliest lists in my possession date from 1965, tatty but still readable. Bought several pewter boxes. c.1967 Bought 2lb tin of Kendal Brown through the House of Bewlay. First bulk buy. 1967 First trip to Morlaix and Paris. First exposure to French rappee sold in waxed paper parcels. Tried the very moist muddy-green French oral tobacco, powerful, but disgusting. (N African oral tobacco better). Took to smoking cigars in Provence, a habit that would last twenty-eight years. Armed myself with the only Spanish snuff still available - 5 pst for a bag of about 40 grams of medium-fine unscented brown - and a litre of Spanish brandy for 12 pst before bullfight in Ronda. (Stuck it out but was very upset, drunk and ill by the end.) 1970 First visit to Dublin and sampled every available snuff, namely those by Carroll’s, Gallagher and Grant’s. (The latter claimed a genuine toast which had a mill similar to Old Paris and had a natural aroma rather like almonds. Obtainable anywhere in Ireland and Ireland only.) Became interested in clay pipes and pipe tobacco. (1970s Main UK manufacturers introduce the Alite system manufactured by Paxall of Letchworth for filling containers - 50,000 a day. The services of wenches and Boer War veterans no longer required. Electricity and modern machinery gradually replaced water and wind power during the 1960s) (1977 Mark Chaytor of Wilsons of Sharrow launches their famous Celebratory range for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. Except for Grimstone’s Eye all these snuffs are still available.) (1978 Customs and Excise duty removed from EEC snuff tobacco. Formerly very expensive F&T snuff becomes much more accessible.) (1980/1 to 1984 J&H Wilsons began their advertising blitz. Memorable was “We’re as famous for pinching as the Italians” - reference to Italian men groping and pinching women on the street. Free box of No.1 or No.99 delivered with blue booklet. Geoff Capes, the world‘s strongest man, advertised Hedges in athletic and sporting magazines.) 1980/1 Visited Westbrook and Sharrow mills. Tours were advertised in tobacconists in Sheffield and associated tobacco literature. Slightly disappointed with all the hi-tec machinery. 1980/81 First noticed and bought the beautiful snuff bottles made by Poschl for their home market then appearing in UK tobacconists. (1982 Illingworth burns down in February. They somehow manage to continue manufacturing from a temporary site.) 1983 Bought last F&T from Wix in Piccadilly. It was from the proprietor there that I learned the Haymarket establishment had folded in December 1981. J&H Wilsons continue manufacturing F&T before passing everything on to Wilsons of Sharrow. Wix themselves went west thereafter, but can‘t remember when. This was probably the largest tobacconist anywhere in the UK. You name it, they sold it. (The AITS, in association with the Society of Snuff Grinders, Blenders and Purveyors and Martin McGahey publish the definitive list of all UK snuffs.) (c1984/7 Small UK snuff manufacturers Alfred Preedy, Hames Hargreaves & Sons, Robert McConnel Ltd (Scotch Roast, Gun Room, Minister’s), JIP Medicated Snuff Ltd of Nuneaton and James Upshall in Wiltshire (Walnut and Lavender ) all seem to stop their (now mostly forgotten) snuff lines or went bust. JIP snuff survived and is now made elsewhere. UK snuff sales hit hard by decline of coal mining.) 1987 Discovered some wonderful Bernard snuffs in Switzerland, sold in bottles. Amostrinha (now mentholated) Feinster Kownoer, Civette, Pariser No. 2 and Alt-Offenbacher Koestlich. Despite being a German company their snuffs were not readily available anywhere in north Germany except occasionally in paper wrapped foil. 1995 Stopped smoking cigars. Started buying 1lb drums of English snuff via post on a regular basis. 2009 Joined this site.

a 50 yr stroll down snuffing lane … very nice. i enjoyed that post.

Excellent post @PhilipS , very enjoyable read. Such a shame about all those small UK based companies though…

Wow did you have all this written down or did you type this post off of memory?? Your memory is astonishing!

I’m thinking about 4yrs, whenever I joined the forum, I’ll have to look. I did an exchange for some snus, as I was new to that, and curious, and in the exchange I also got a Jaxons Cherry Menthol. Well, I really wasn’t digging the snus experience, and that Jaxons sat in the freezer for a long while, and one day I decided to try it, and I loved it. I thought it was great, and then I rather quickly after that found this forum and made my 1st order at MrSnuff. I did eventually learn to like snus, and that lead to trying other oral tobaccos, but now I am quitting oral tobacco(I mean it this time) and only using nasal snuff.

Good luck tom502 this time! You’ll be in Guinness book of records soon.

Thanks AllanH. I don’t want to sidetrack the thread, but I used to smoke, and while not as bad health-wise, I find oral tobacco to be harder to quit than smoking. But I can do it. That’s why I am reluctant to recommend it to anyone. Snuff, the nasal kind, to me is more like a hobby, I’m not jonsin’ for a sniff upon waking, maybe some do, but I don’t. I feel I can enjoy nasal snuff in a hobby way, and not be gripped to it.

I first snuffed when I bought some Mccrystals violet from a tobacco shop at 18. Have used daily for about 3 years now. So off and on for about 12 years and steady for 3.

That was a nice read PhillipS.

My cousins friends used to snorted Copenhagen Snuff thinking it was the same as nasal snuff. Then I gave them a half empty container of D. White lol

Since that day over Machu Pichu!

Whalen… “looks like I picked the wrong day to quit amphetamines”…

2 years or so.

For 2 years, on a pretty regular basis.

Another good bit of information. Thank you very much Vathek.

I have been taking snuff for about 2 months only and I wish I had all my life, well I mean since I started using tobacco. I’ll probably take my last pinch on my death bed. I find cigarettes so lame and trivial now. Someone offers me a cig and I go “what for?” and I then take a pinch of snuff!

Vathek - my word, you’ve kindled a few memories with your post. I can recall Astley’s in Jermyn Street playing on their advantageous position in the West End to host exhibitions touted by a Town Crier outside in the street. In the early 1980s Astley’s had a Roaring Twenties week. I remember this well because I bought a chic cigarette holder for a cousin at that time. I also remember their extensive exhibition of antique pipes. A louche club is a description that captures the ambience of this late Victorian shop perfectly. You probably remember better than I do, but the other tobacconists in Jermyn Street also hosted various exhibitions. One of them (it might have been Dunhill, but I’m not sure) also had their own pipe maker displaying his craft in the shop. Another shop (again I’m not sure, but it might have been Charatan) had a display of hundreds of tobaccos arranged in graduation of colour. “…there’s a touch of melancholy about the old, lost tobacco shops” Downright depressing. Every main town in the UK had a good tobacconist of character and those in London (and Paris) were possibly the best in the world. Buying over the internet is convenient, but the sheer enjoyment of sampling snuff, handling and examining numerous boxes and chatting to knowledgeable proprietors or employees has no substitute. Nevertheless, I’m very pleased to hear your news that some of these wonderful old shops still survive.

I need to move to the UK

Wonderful post PhilipS. Talking of melancholy, the saddest demise of a shop, for me, is the one that is still open. Compared to the days of Vivien Rose its heartbreaking to see the half empty shelves and indifferent service. I can vividly remember, as a spotty boy, walking into the shop for the first time and Mr Rose saying, in a gentlemanly tone, ‘some snuff for you sir?’ First time I had ever been spoken to like that. I left with a small rosewood box filled with HDT from one of the earthenware jars feeling like a character out of Dickens. I wonder if the old gent is still alive? If I am ever in the Haymarket I just close my eyes and try to ignore the greetings card shop, just too much of a loss to our art.

“Compared to the days of Vivien Rose its heartbreaking to see the half empty shelves and indifferent service.” Yes, I went there two years ago with the express intention of buying just one tin of their flagship snuff, Café Royale and … sacré bleu, they didn’t even have it in stock, so I tootled off to Mullins & Westley instead. I don’t think I’ll go there again. “I can vividly remember, as a spotty boy, walking into the shop for the first time and Mr Rose saying, in a gentlemanly tone, ‘some snuff for you sir?’ First time I had ever been spoken to like that. I left with a small rosewood box filled with HDT from one of the earthenware jars feeling like a character out of Dickens.” That must have been quite a long time ago. ‘Irish High Toast’ dropped off the list, at a guess, sometime in the mid 1970s. My earliest list (sellotaped together) from 1965 contains forty-five names and the lists get shorter and shorter through the 70s and 80s. The last one lists only twenty-two snuffs. How many remember Green Cardinal or Latakia? Your recollection made me chuckle. I was an over-sized burly youth of sixteen when I made my first London forays, my confidence bolstered no doubt by having lost my virginity to a much older woman earlier in the year. No one ever seemed to question adolescents using snuff and I openly took snuff at school. Didn’t dare take a pinch under the gimlet-eye of my acid-tongued form master, but other masters were very easy-going and had occasional pinches from my box themselves. Caught smoking, however, and you’d get six of the best, (appropriately) after morning prayers next day. “I wonder if the old gent is still alive?” Quite possibly, but he would be very old now. My estimate is that he was born somewhere between 1920-25.

The West End is outrageously expensive. I don’t smoke anymore but while I did I always found The House of Bewlay good enough for most requirements and they had a large chain of outlets, reasonably priced. The father of the actor, Patrick Allen, was a co-founder of the business. Patrick Allen himself was a snuff aficionado although his association is not as well known as that of James Robertson Justice or Frank Muir. Allen was granted honorary membership of the Society of Snuff-Grinders, Blenders and Purveyors for his services to snuff in general and to Fribourg & Treyer in particular. To this end he gave a series of lectures and I regret not having taking the opportunity to attend one when I had the chance.

It was a long time ago, and definitely loose HDT, but the exact year escapes me, maybe 1980 but no later. As for the Cardinal range; I have the entire range in a Smith’s presentation box of small glass jars. It also contains other forgotten types like ‘town clerk’. One or two are unopened to this day.

That you have all seven Cardinals is great and I remember those little bottles with the black plastic tear-off strip very well. Although I must have tried it I can’t remember Town Clerk at all. A booklet describes it brusquely as “A subtle blend of floral and aromatic oils”. If the presentation box of jars were still available I’d buy one just for an olfactoral trip down memory lane.

Something like that, maybe a touch of tonquin as well - I think there was a dab of that in lots of the old Smith’s snuffs, plus, of course, a tonquin snuff.

Irish High Toast was still shown on the Smith’s list in ‘All about snuff and snuff taking’ (Society of SG, B & P), which from the date of one of the medical references reproduced therein means the booklet was still being produced as late as 1986. I’m sure I bought some in the early 90’s after the sale of the shop, although by that time no more loose snuff was sold.

Does the Society of Snuff Grinders, Blenders and Purveters still exist? Stefan

Sadly not.

Took my first pinch in 1978 when i worked as an apprentice electrician in the colliery. I regularly use snuff ever since. My staple snuff back in the day was Dr. Rhumney.

I first tried snuff back in about 2005 and didn’t like it much, tried again in 2007 or so and ended up joining Snuffhouse I think in 2008. I got really in to it, then took a break for a while, and have snuffed like a fiend since I gave up cigs last year.

28 years with a few breaks. Top Mill started it, purchased from a tobacconist in Birmingham. Good stuff.

Well, about 4 years I guess. 2 years on regular basis, when I discovered brands outside of Poschl -easiest to get locally here in PL

I’ve known about snuff for a long time, probably from watching BBC and later reading about Native tribes using it.  Otherwise I had no formal exposure to it as it’s a rare commodity here.  I just decided one day to look it up and order some.  That was 5 months ago

A little over a year.  I had tried plenty of other forms of tobacco and was curious so I bought some peach scotch over ebay since I cannot find it in a store near me.  Been hooked ever since. 

2 years and a few months now. Still loving it. First quit cigs for 8 years with ecigs, then quit ecigs almost as soon as I found snuff. Snuff tobacco was always a curious thing. When I started buying Copenhagen for dip I looked up what “snuff” was. A dozen years ago I saw a selection of nasal snuff at a tobacco shop, but the guy convinced me not to buy it. He said it was very painful and very addictive and not to do it if I wasn’t already hooked. Ha! I was in Tennessee with my wife & kids on vacation. I foind online a tobaccanist close by that said they do their own chew (a weakness of mine). The gentleman who owned the shop happened to have six or eight boxes of different Silver Dollars (Toque) tins on display. I asked which he recommended and I bought a tin of Silver Dollar Apricot. A few days later I probably joined this forum. Back from vacation I ended up calling several tens of stores looking to find any nasal snuff that wasn’t Garrett. Finally I found a store 45 minutes away, which I cleared out of Toque USA & Silver Dollar over the 3 visits I made in the 5 weeks my first MrSnuff order took to arrive I proceeded to buy almost every snuff possible so I’ll have a Big buffer to scarcity.

When I was 15 years old I started. THat has been 22 years now. But not all these long long years. There was an interuption form 2003 til 2006 and another from 2008 to 2010. But also in these times I used to take a pinch from time to time.

Mostly Poschl and Bernard as they are widely availalbe here in Bavaria.

Since 2014 I am more and more in the complex snuffs like SPs and Toasts.

In 2016 I think it was when the TPD2 banned a lot of good stuff from the german maket. But there is still good old UK where we can order.

My first I ever took was when I had a cold and my grandpa gave me a fat pinch of Gletscherprise to clear my nose. LOL! I almost hated and loved it at the same time.

It’s been about 5 years for me now and making my own snuffs for 4 years.

Wish I’d have started sooner! 

12 years, helped me stop smoking cigs, then to dip, then went to ecigs, then to snus and back around to snuff again, with the odd pipe here and there.