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Meet the family (my pipes)
50ft_trad
Member
Thought I'd offer up some piccies of my cluster of pipes. Nothing too exotic, but to be honest, I actually quite like that. One of the things I like about the pipe is it's inherent simplicity. It also means I'm not fearful of using/carrying them. However, there are still a couple that I would be very upset about if they got lost or damaged.
Thank to to the members here for their support and guidance in me finding my feet with these pipes. Your input has been invaluable in me getting comfortable with the pipe with minimal expense, frustration, and calamity.
Thank to to the members here for their support and guidance in me finding my feet with these pipes. Your input has been invaluable in me getting comfortable with the pipe with minimal expense, frustration, and calamity.
Comments
Cobs - not being traditional in the UK - never really appealed to me but having finally bought one, used it, and found how well it smoked, I will probably get some more.
I particularly like your Parker sandblast poker - you posted a larger picture of that in another thread and I thought it was a very handsome pipe.
I hope that you enjoy them all and that they bring you many years of pleasure.
The two Parkers are my "dress" pipes. The black one (is it a Cherrywood or a Poker?) I'm using for English blends, and the four square panel for aros.
I've not figured out which model the other one equates to yet. I'd be interested in doing a similar price comparison on that one.
Squadron Leader and Bob's Choc Flake are two definite faves. Pigtail gets loaded up if I just need a full on nic fix, and Ennerdale, Coniston Cut Plug, and SG 2013 Ltd Edition have been enjoyed as nice summertime smokes that are a little less obnoxious for people I'm sat with.
I had a bowl of Commonwealth Mixture earlier, and have been carrying the "beard note" around with me all day since. I did have a tin of 1792 Flake which I find a little much for me on the Tonquin side, so I used that in the 9mm Molina Hobby which tones it down just nice ... although the tin seems to have gone AWOL at the moment :-S
Thanks for the tip on the tobacco, but I'm not in the US, and the combined shipping and customs would make it rather futile for me. :)
If I was starting afresh with the knowledge I now have, I'd probably only have maybe 6 or 7 of these pipes, and be perfectly satisfied. I'd probably forego the two Mini Legends, the Molina Hobby, and the second Ozark. Possibly have gone for a slightly smaller cob than the Washington too. I do like the small size of the Baby Wellbent, but I also resent the fact it's not a sitter, so maybe I'd look for a similar pocket sized briar sitter
I also like cheap. :P what I paid in total for all these pipes brand new, is less than what many people would consider paying for an estate pipe, which don't appeal to me at all. To me it would be like buying second hand underwear, and no matter how many times they were cleaned, I wouldn't be comfortable using them. Each to their own.
I also agree with the "used underwear / used chewing gum" analogy regarding estate pipes. Even if you replace the bit, saliva from the previous owner's years of use is bound to have absorbed into the cob, wood, or whatever material, and the idea of smoking that is just . . . ugh.
Finally, I appreciate the low cost of the cob - if something were to happen to it, I'm only out a few bucks. I'd rather spend my money on quality tobacco than on a high-priced pipe that isn't going smoke much, if any, better than my ten dollar cob.
Personally though, I only use them at home and wouldn't use them if I was sat in a beer garden with friend's or round at someone's house for a party/BBQ, because they really don't hide their cheapness in their appearance. That's where my two briars come in. Despite that, the most expensive pipe that I own, only cost the equivalent of three Country Gentleman cobs.
Yes, cobs can certainly take a beating. I've dropped them on a number of occasions (I'm clumsy), and I've never yet broken one.
Nice pictures, by the way.
I haven't actually braved the big wide world with one of my pipes yet. I've gone as far as having one in my pocket, but the only time I've smoked a pipe away from home was on a car journey to a friend's house, and smoked a bowl when I was there. However, this is a friend I've known since I was five, and nothing surprises him anymore. I haven't lit the pipe in public though. As to the cob, they were never used over here. The poor man's pipe over here was the clay AFAIK
I have occasionally taken a pinch in public, and a couple of people have looked as if they were unsure what I was doing, but didn't question it. As I have a slightly uncommon appearance with the long hair and beard, they might have been a little more inclined to think it was more than tobacco.
I haven't braved the pipe yet partially because it is so archaic here. It's not that I am worried about how it looks, but that people might think I am smoking it FOR the look, if that makes sense. Again, having a slightly off-piste appearance may lead some to think there's other things smouldering away in there too. I just can't be doing with having to educate idiots without being paid for it :P
The day will come though, and by then I want to be "competent", and for my pipes to be at least as well seasoned as my abilities :))
That makes perfect sense. Incidentally, pipe-smoking is as archaic over here as it is where you are.
I learned a new word today - "off-piste". That's a new one!
For some reason I'd actually gotten the impression that the pipe was still more popular over there than over here, particularly in the rural areas, and especially with the prices being so much lower over there. On another forum I frequent (not smoking related), there was a thread about the pipe, and IIRC there were a number of American members who were regular pipe smokers (I don't think any were city folk), and only two Brits who owned a pipe but they would only smoke a bowl very occasionally, one of which used his hand rolling tobacco......
All that said, whatever works for you.