Do you know a roller?

[McNatsarim]

Please comment below on your thoughts about how many cigar smokers actually roll their own cigars. I went to a nice lounge near a huge city asking if they knew cigar rollers that I could pay to teach me and they said they know 1 lady and she visits the shops to make and sell her cigars once in awhile. 1 lady. That's it

Is this hobby/art really that rare? I haven't even rolled my 1st cigar yet and am I to believe that I will be entering into a craft that less than 1% of actual cigars smokers know how to do?

What are your thoughts on this? How many do you know? How many of us are there?
This is unreal! 1 lady...

 

[deluxestogie]

The FTT Forum has (nominally) about 7000 members—world-wide. The majority of tobacco users are cigarette smokers. Among all tobacco users in the US, between 10 and 20% smoke cigars. If we wildly overestimate, and say that 100% of FTT Forum members roll their own cigars, then we can make a rough calculation for the upper limit of cigar rollers in an "average" community.

FTT members = 7,000; round it up to 8,000 members
World population = 8,000,000,000

cigar rollers fraction of the population = 8,000/8,000,000,000 = 1/1,000,000

So, fewer that 1 in a million people would be cigar rollers. We'll ignore the numerous, underpaid cigar factory workers in various developing countries.

Do you grind your own corn or wheat?

Bob

 

[McNatsarim]

The FTT Forum has (nominally) about 7000 members—world-wide. The majority of tobacco users are cigarette smokers. Among all tobacco users in the US, between 10 and 20% smoke cigars. If we wildly overestimate, and say that 100% of FTT Forum members roll their own cigars, then we can make a rough calculation for the upper limit of cigar rollers in an "average" community.

FTT members = 7,000; round it up to 8,000 members
World population = 8,000,000,000

cigar rollers fraction of the population = 8,000/8,000,000,000 = 1/1,000,000

So, fewer that 1 in a million people would be cigar rollers. We'll ignore the numerous, underpaid cigar factory workers in various developing countries.

Do you grind your own corn or wheat?

Bob

Short answer, no.
The older my wife and I get the more we appreciate real food. We got the chickens, she makes sour bread like it's going out of style and she has that new giant garden I built her. So where we do not currently grind our own flour, I can say with confidence that I'm sure it's only a matter of time till we do

 

[GreenDragon]

I understand your frustration, but think of it from a different angle. Gold prospectors don’t frequent jewelry stores. People that patronize cigar lounges are not rollers - they are there to buy expensive cigars from the proprietor and bask in the company of others smoking expensive cigars. These places frown on you bringing your own cigars in, and if you do, it’s expected that you still buy some from the lounge. Most home rollers do it for a combo of reasons: enjoyment of the art, to save money, as a hobby, utilize home grown leaf, etc. I would wager good money that the majority are also introverts going by Bob’s membership statistics. Out of 7,000+ members only around 20 post semi-frequently (0.3%).

 

[McNatsarim]

I understand your frustration, but think of it from a different angle. Gold prospectors don’t frequent jewelry stores. People that patronize cigar lounges are not rollers - they are there to buy expensive cigars from the proprietor and bask in the company of others smoking expensive cigars. These places frown on you bringing your own cigars in, and if you do, it’s expected that you still buy some from the lounge. Most home rollers do it for a combo of reasons: enjoyment of the art, to save money, as a hobby, utilize home grown leaf, etc. I would wager good money that the majority are also introverts going by Bob’s membership statistics. Out of 7,000+ members only around 20 post semi-frequently (0.3%).

Excellent observation sir. I'm a bit of an extrovert and I do wish there was more traffic here. I can't deny the reality that you have offered. Maybe this time next year I could start offering lessons to people around me I don't know. This just seems way to cool to not share.

 

[treecutter]

I'm curious about that lady

 

[DaleB]

I’ve never met, in person, anyone who has grown their own tobacco for any reason, or rolled their own cigars, or blended their own pipe tobacco from raw leaf. The only people I’ve met who even rolled their tobacco en cigarettes were back in the 60s using Bull Durham, and a couple in the UK since cigs were about $20 a pack even back in 2022.

I’m a ham radio operator, a pilot, and an experimental airplane builder, and this group is even smaller.

 

[deluxestogie]

The cultural implications of who performs which tasks are always shifting. From the Renaissance through the Victorian period, the higher your social rank, the fewer manual tasks you performed yourself. [Master vs. servant.] It was only during the last quarter of the 20th century that "educated" people in the US began to consider growing their own food, raising a farm animal or three, and making some of their own furniture, etc. I seem to recall that making your own cheese at home became a thing in the first decade of the 21st century.

I believe that the 1960s political disruptions of the previously hum-drum cigar trade (e.g. Cuban embargo) initiated the cascade of tobacco market changes that eventually deteriorated into the 1990s celebrity endorsements of cigars, and factory cigar pricing that clearly encourages one to consider rolling one's own cigars.

Bob

 

[McNatsarim]

The price is absolutely a factor for my decision to learn how to roll. But even more for myself it's about having that beautiful, tangible "thing" that my hands made. I have never worked a job where I could stand back and be like... I did that. There's not alot of self satisfaction in operating a locomotive or working at an oil refinery. But with this, I will have something to physically hold onto and say... I did that!
It's the small things right? Like 6x60 small things lol

 

[Sergey Ukraine]

The price is absolutely a factor for my decision to learn how to roll. But even more for myself it's about having that beautiful, tangible "thing" that my hands made. I have never worked a job where I could stand back and be like... I did that. There's not alot of self satisfaction in operating a locomotive or working at an oil refinery. But with this, I will have something to physically hold onto and say... I did that!
It's the small things right? Like 6x60 small things lol

There is a good saying: “If you want something done right, do it yourself.”