The bad thing about buying pipes in antique/collectible shops, flea markets and street fair, is the funky smell in the pipes. I don’t know if the vendors just pipes stored for 10 years in a box filled with dirty socks but they stink. I have actually declined to buy a pipe because it smelled so bad. Yes, I sniff the …
It was a relatively nice and unassuming day when we walked into the antique mall. I wasn’t expecting to find anything. My wife and I were mainly looking to get away from the house for a while and maybe expand her salt and pepper shaker collection. There, in the very back of the building, I found a booth festooned with …
One of my four sisters likes to shop flea markets, street fairs, antique/collectible and junk shops. She recently found a Royal Danish 991R which she gifted to me as a restoration project. In researching the pipe, I’ve found that it is a Ukulele shape designed for Stanwell by Sixteen Iversson. Royal Danish is one of the “seconds” brand of Stanwell …
Even a blind squirrel finds an occasional acorn. That’s how I feel sometimes when I walk into a junktique shop (the signs usually say “Antique & Collectibles) and finding something worth adding to my collection. A recent Saturday expedition to one of these shops uncovered 15 or 16 usual Medicos, Dr. Grabow’s and Kaywoodie’s damaged beyond consideration. I found the …
(In an earlier post, I wrote about buying estate pipes in various types of shops. This is a follow-up to that post.) Collecting estate/used pipes can be frustrating at times when shopping antique and collectible shops. It’s even worse when the shops claim to be antique but are really junktique and flea markets. If you want to purchase a good, …
The topic keeps resurfacing on pipe smoking forums. Do the higher priced, premium pipes really smoke better than less expensive pipes? There are some pipe smoking snobs who claim the more expensive pipes do smoke better. But how does that explain the thousands of pipe smokers who collect and swear by the smoking qualities of Kaywoodies and Dr. Grabow’s for …
For the testing I loaded two grams of Dunhill My Mixture 965 in each pipe. I weighed the tobacco on my kitchen scale. Stanwell HCA: Passes a pipe cleaner with some wiggling. Draft hole off center high. Avg. size airway in stem. Good, easy draught – like sipping a fountain drink through a plastic straw. Bowl was warm but comfortable …
“Do High Priced Pipes Really Smoke Better.” My Conclusions… After conducting my smoking test and talking to several expert pipe carvers and restorers, I decided the answer is so subjective for a yes or no answer. What makes a pipe a quality smoker depends on the definition of a quality smoker by each pipe smoker. I have several hypotheses and …
Here’s the question. When shopping at antique/collectible/flea market/junk shops, how much is too much to pay for a pipe? Of course, the final answer is, “It depends on how much the buyer is willing to spend.” But other than that, how do you determine if the pipe you’re looking at is a good value? I look at different factors when …
Cornell & Diehl Sea Dog (Scoundrel Series) claims to be an English blend. That’s where my confusion about it starts. While it does contain some tobacco commonly found in English blends, the proportions seem to be all wrong. Most English blends I know contain Latakia, Oriental/Turkish and Virginia – in that order of use. Sea Dog missed the memo on …
