So I’ve been a long-time fan of McChrystal’s Hops snuff, which always came in tins with a cool unique black and yellow label with a little hops plant logo and a German name “STAMMHEIMER HOPFEN SCHNUPF”, with the McChrystal’s logo underneath, like this: 
The logo gave it an authentic and unique German beer flair. So on my most recent order, I ordered 3 25g tins of McChrystal’s Hops. But lo and behold, when I open the box, I was wondering where my Hopfen Schnupf was, but it turns out they have replaced the label, and now use the dull and horrible generic “McChrystal’s” logo with “HOPS” written in tiny letters. Now, in general I hate the way McChrystal’s labels all of its tins with the sole exception of Original & Genuine. O&G comes with a nice full-sized label with “Original and Genuine” written clearly on top. But other McChrystal’s snuffs come with crappy boring hard-to-read labels, very tiny labels with very tiny writing. It doesn’t look at all like the advertising pictures. For example, a 25g tin of McChrystal’s Supermint snuff comes with a tiny little label that looks like it was meant for a 3.5g tin, with “Supermint” written in very tiny letters. The same is true for McChrystal’s Raspberry and English Menthol. I have to squint and put my glasses on to try to make out exactly which snuff is which. @-) They look like this, the teensy tiny red lettering on the teensy tiny label is the only indication of exactly which snuff is in the tin 8-| : 
Maybe McChrystal’s saves on costs by only making 3.5g size labels and sticking it on all of their tins regardless of size, I don’t know. But now giving this same treatment to their Hops snuff is quite upsetting, I miss my Hopfen Schnupf! :(( Here is a direct comparison of the new tin vs the old: 
Yeah, I have trouble reading the tiny print also. Seems like either a bad marketing decision or they ran out of the regular labels.
To be honest: i NEVER did like the STAMMHEIMER HOPFEN. I found it horrible and did throw it away after first purchase. Anyway, i want totally support your point. This tiny stickers look like crap on bigger sized cans and the “old” logo was really nice.
Yeah, I have trouble reading the tiny print also. Seems like either a bad marketing decision or they ran out of the regular labels.
Yeah I don’t quite understand the logic behind the tiny labels with tiny print, it’s difficult to tell one can from the next. I’ve never ordered a McChrystal’s tin in a 3.5g size, but I wonder if this is the label they use for that, and they decided to cut costs by just using the 3.5g label on all of their tins.
To be honest: i NEVER did like the STAMMHEIMER HOPFEN. I found it horrible and did throw it away after first purchase. Anyway, i want totally support your point. This tiny stickers look like crap on bigger sized cans and the “old” logo was really nice.
You mean you never liked the snuff itself, or you never liked the STAMMHEIMER HOPFEN label? But yeah the tiny labels look really cheap and crappy on 25g tins. Meanwhile McChrystal’s Original and Genuine has such a nice full-size label. At the very least, you must admit the STAMMHEIMER HOPFEN label looked much cooler than the generic tiny label McChrystal’s is putting on their Hops snuff now. I’m glad I have a few old STAMMHEIMER HOPFEN tins, I have 2 25g tins and 1 10g tin, although the label on that one is starting to so wear so I was hoping to be able to order a new one, but unfortunately it looks like I’m too late. But at least I can transfer the Hop snuff into the old tins.
@DivinusSalviarum Yeah, i never did like the snuff itself but i can understand why someone doesn’t like this tiny labels. Why the company does something like this is like a riddle to me.
@DivinusSalviarum Yeah, i never did like the snuff itself but i can understand why someone doesn’t like this tiny labels. Why the company does something like this is like a riddle to me.
Ya it’s bewildering to me. My only theory is the cost-cutting theory I mentioned earlier, McChrystal’s can save on costs by only making 3.5g tin labels and sticking that on all their tins, even though it looks terrible on their big 21g tins, and is hard to read. But getting rid of the unique Hopfen Schnupf label in favor of their generic horrible labels really is disappointing. Though I can’t imagine the cost of printing out different size paper labels could be all that great. Somehow other snuff companies are able to provide nice, easy to read full-size labels for all their different-sized tins. Wilson’s of Sharrow uses similar tins to McChrystal’s, and their labels are always made to fit whatever size tin you buy.
This is a bit upsetting. I really liked the previous label. It was eye catching and I enjoyed pulling that one out in public to use. Good thing I saved a few of the older ones.
I sent an e-mail to McChrystal’s directly letting them know I am disappointed in the label change and urging them to bring back the old Hopfen Schnupf label. If anyone else is upset by the change and wants to contact McChrystal’s, their contact page is here: http://www.mcchrystals.co.uk/contact/ You can contact them by e-mail at ian@mcchrystals.co.uk You can also contact them by telephone at +44 (0) 116 270 7230 The number is a UK number. But please do contact them either by e-mail and/or telephone, maybe if enough people urge them to change it back they will listen.
Packaging and brand recognition are certainly factors that drive the market. I have had non-snuff products change their look through rebranding or different packaging and when I could eventually make out what I was looking for there lingered consternation that something inside had changed- when in most cases nothing had, even though they made sure to print “same great xxx”. I suppose the marketing department goes round and round when rebranding/repackaging and likely take cost into account while using some measure of how the consumer typically react to these changes, but I am of the sort who comes to know a product by how it looks and whatever subtle message the packaging conveys. In the case of snuffs I have had mixed feelings about “modern” labels. Perhaps this is because I have always viewed snuff as something more traditional, more grounded in history or however it can be expressed. For the record- I use Toque and it has a rather flashy label that in no way heralds back to snuffs origins and yet I am an avid consumer.
Are those tins now collectors items?
As evidence, I took a picture of the new McChrystal’s Hops tin versus the old Hopfen Schnupf tin: I’m glad I kept my old tins!
@divinussalviarum I was going to suggest you e-mail McChyrstal’s. Ian McChrystal usually responds to customer comments personally. You will likely get a response. Also I want to point out that the snuff was originally custom made for the Stammheimer Hops farm in Switzerland, and they may want the exclusive right to the old label. Or possibly they discontinued their arrangement. http://www.hopfentropfen.ch/home.php
Divinussalviarum Schnupf
@Xander Actually I already e-mailed Ian, and I suggest some other posters here do the same if they have a similar feelings. I explained to him that I have been a long-time loyal customer buying many McChrystal’s snuffs, mentioning that in my last order I ordered the full 12-pack box of Original & Genuine large tins, but that I was disappointed in the new labeling for the Hops tins. I wasn’t aware of the Stammheimer arrangement, but if they discontinued the arrangement, I wouldn’t have minded that they just drop the “Stammheimer” name but otherwise keep the unique label. “Hopfen Schnupf” just means “Hops Snuff” in German, so I don’t think anyone owns the exclusive rights to that name. Using the generic McChrystal’s label, which as discussed is pretty bad to begin with (with the exception of O&G), just really makes the Hops snuff tin lose some of its character.
I was a bit disappointed when mine arrived and it wasn’t in the tin shown onthe web site I ordered from 
It’s just a tin guys! 
Alright so I have one update. I directly contacted Ian at McChrystal’s about the label change. To quote Ian directly, he said: “This is not bought from us. You are buying it from another website in the Uk that we supply. We don’t send out the German label to UK customers.” (Which would include UK-based mrsnuff.com) I responded that I’d placed plenty of orders before from mrsnuff before and received the German label, as recently as last November, so was curious about why the sudden label change for UK customers. But any way, he told me if I wanted the ‘correct label’ (his term), I could order from their Swiss distributor Breeze Gmbh: http://www.schnupftabak.ch/web/index.php?page=index However they only ship to Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, so that’s not going to be an option for most of us. He told me I could also get the ‘correct label’ by ordering direct from him, but I pointed out to him that Hopfen Schnupf is not even listed in McChrystal’s online store. So I’m waiting for an answer from him. I would be happy to order direct from McChrystal’s if it means I could get the cool original Hopfen Schnupf labels, even though I just bought 3 21g tins with the ugly label from Mr. Snuff! I’ll keep you guys updated if I hear back from him again!
Or you can put the new snuff in the old tin.
As long as they don’t change the snuff; I could care less if they used a crayon to label the tin