Oh yes, Stefan, definitely good pub crawling country around there. Not that I know it well. My Sheffield relatives are from Handsworth - Sean Bean country. They were mostly snuff using miners when there were still coal mines around there. In fact my great-grandfather was the chairman of Handsworth Working Men’s Club for years.
Right after my first email I received an answer saying they wouldn’t let a tin looking like that leave their premises and asking if I had contacted Mars to ask about it. I guess they didn’t read my letter too thoroughly as I said where I bought the snuff from and it wasn’t Mars. So I answered saying that I ordered from shop such and such and since they (Wilson’s) are much closer to me than this shop and since I thought they would want to know about it, I emailed them with the pictures. That was early in the afternoon Thursday. Haven’t heard anything since. Pretty disappointing, but that’s the world these days.
Really? Seriously, how much would it cost them to send you a replacement tin gratis?
That’s what I thought. Goodwill is worth alot and not so hard to aquire…
wow, that looks rank. I have an old snuff by post order form here it has the Wilsons telephone phone number on if you want it?
Thanks, Stu. I can phone them if necessary. I suppose the numbers are on their website. Don’t understand why they can’t do business via email like the rest of the world…
I think they are very stuck in the past and probably don’t feel they have to do too much in terms of customer focus, I can’t believe that we have snuff companies that are not be on friendly terms with the members of a site like this - their loss. In any case, IMHO, they have been completely eclipsed by Toque and Dholakia.
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Snuffbox, Send an email directly to Carol Walker. Here is the email address: Carol@sharrowmills.com Also did you email a pic to P&C.com so they check the others & pull if necessary so no one else receives these?
Hey Trout, Carol is the one who answered my first email. Haven’t heard back from anyone after that. I didn’t mail P&C because like we talked about if they have such old stock they really must not be selling much and are probably not experts on the topic. I’ll see if WIlson’s ever follows up and then I’ll decide what to do about P&C. Thanks guys.
I don’t know but I’ve read that aluminum doesn’t corrode much based on time but more directly on condition. Like it might have more to do with how it was shiped or stored then how long it has been on the shelf. Supposedly most aluminum corrosion is electro-chemical so maybe it is something in the snuff or the shipping or something. I don’t know really but looked up a little bit about that before going to bed so.
Princes is supposed to be moist so that along with tobacco juice ought to be enough to do a job on aluminum over the long haul. The porcelain coating of those tins should work pretty well unless somebody starts playing with the tins and opening them and getting snuff all over the threads, or if the factory doesn’t keep the threads clean in the first place. It is strange that there was so much debris in the snuff itself. Definitely bad news.
I sent a nice letter with the pics and as I mentioned above got a reply saying to contact Mars. Now Mars had nothing to do with this and it was obvious if they would have spent ten seconds actually reading my letter, but that would have required somebody to give a damn. I sent back a response within an hour saying it wasn’t Mars, it was shop such and such and thinking Wilson’s would want to know about this. BTW Never got any answer if this was safe to use or not. After not hearing anything for almost a week I sent another note saying can someone please help with this and this is what I got today: "Please see our e-mail dated 25th September. We have investigated and, as stated previously, this is an old tin you have purchased. We DO NOT hold stock of any of our snuff for more than a few weeks, as we are very busy. This tin MUST have been supplied by your retailer and it is with him you need to address your complaint. Regards, " In other words, it ain’t our fault, we don’t care about you, and your business doesn’t matter to us, at least it isn’t worth more than one can of bad Princes.
you would have thought with wilsons been a small family run business they would have been a lot more ‘on the ball’ when it comes to customer support 
Hey not very modern but they do have a point (guess I’am saying there are multiple ways to look at this, may sound strange I agree with you but also think they do have a point). I have to say again to I really don’t think it’s time that caused the problem either. From what I’ve looked into most aluminum is corroded already which is what keeps it from looking like your tin since the corrded layer is thin and prevents it from really super corroding like your tin. Even if you scratch the outer layer of corrosion off under normal circumstances it should make a layer of corrosion that is mild and what you normaly see on say a aluminum baseball bat. So my best guess is something went wrong somewhere in the storage process my guess is probably with the distributor. Though I’am no expert but hey look it up that’s what I did.
Here’s what I say: First of all, I don’t hold Wilson’s directly responsible for this, nobody took the can to a lab and said whether it was some contamination during manufacture or whether it was bad storage or just a tin that sat around unsold for too long. I never accused Wilson’s of anything in my letter or on here, I just said here are some pics, is this snuff safe to use? The answer I got wasn’t appropriate. They didn’t say whether it was safe to use or not, they were more concerned in placing the blame. I think finger pointing is silly and pointless (no pun intended) when an easy solution is available. Think how much free good press they could have gotten if they had simply said, “We’re sorry this happened and although we really believe that you were sold an old tin of snuff, we value our customers and will replace this for you immediately. We will also follow up with the vendor to inquire as to why they might be selling old snuff.” After all there is no expiration date on the tin and no date of manufacture, so why should the little guy take a beating when you have the manufacturer and a big retailer involved and selling alot of this product? I just think their answer wasn’t good service, didn’t answer the question, and didn’t treat me as a valued customer. They can blame the retailer all they want, and they may even be right, but they would have gained a loyal customer had they treated me like they cared instead of as an annoyance.
I do agree with you. I get the impression sometimes with wilsons it’s not the best thing it’s family run since it seems like at times they treat it like an inheritance more then a bussiness they would choose to run.
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LOL didn’t we agree in another thread that shills won’t be tolerated? 
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