Michael Gladis plays the pipe smoking copywriter, "Paul Kinsey" on AMC TV’s Mad Men. Not only does his character Paul smoke a pipe, but Mr. Gladis smokes a pipe in real life.

PipesMagazine.com Editor & Publisher, Kevin Godbee sat down with Michael Gladis in the private smoking lounge at Davidoff of Geneva in midtown Manhattan on November 14, 2009. They talked about pipe smoking, his role on Mad Men, and his acting career in general. Michael is charming, friendly, and witty while he enjoys smoking his pipe and giving us the inside scoop on Mad Men and telling us how he is similar to Paul Kinsey. See Part I of our video interview with Michael Gladis here and see if you can get the trivia question right at the end.

Nat Sherman is one of the most well-known luxury tobacconists in the world. They have had a retail store and smoking lounge in New York City for 80 years now.

They are famous for their own brands of all-natural cigarettes, cigars and pipe tobacco. As soon as you walk through the front door you will see nearly 100 pipes displayed, as well as over 15 exclusive pipe tobacco blends.

Here is an account of our visit to the store, including a video interview with Michael Holba, Retail Sales Manager.

On Friday, May 1 at The 2009 Chicagoland Int’l Pipe & Tobacciana Show, Tom Clasen gave a 1-hour presentation entitled, "Collecting William Demuth & Co. (WDC) Pipes & related Tobacciana".

The Program for Mr. Clasen’s talk read as follows; "Tom will speak of the life and times of William Demuth including a few personal glimpses into his life, and he will discuss the wide variety of pipes which have appeared with his distinctive trademark between roughly the 1860s and 1960s. He will discuss several other important people associated with the Demuth Company. Most importantly he hopes to display a selection of WDC pipes and advertising displays representing the various periods during the approximately 100 years of WDC. Tom will also discuss why it is fun to collect these and offer some insights on doing so."

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For your viewing convenience, we have split the presentation into 12 clips of 5 minutes each. We would like to thank the Chicago Pipe Collector’s Club for the exclusive rights of publishing their videos from the show.

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On Saturday, May 2 at The 2009 Chicagoland Int’l Pipe & Tobacciana Show, John N. Low gave a 1-hour presentation entitled, "The Weird, Unusual, Imaginative and Curious Pipes". John N. Low is the Executive Director of the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian in Evanston, IL

The Program for Mr. Low’s talk read as follows; "Mr. Low’s talk will focus on the use of tobacco by North American Indians and the use of Catlinite pipes. As a part of his presentation he will have with him items from the collections of the Mitchell Museum of the American Indian. Pipestone is a special red stone which has been quarried in what is now called Pipestone, Minnesota, for thousands of years. The Pipestone quarries are considered sacred ground by many American Indian people. All tribes could come here in peace and quarry this buttery soft red sacred stone. Today American Indian people still come to quarry the stone to make pipes and other articles. Objects and pipes made from the red pipestone (also known as Catlinite) have been eagerly collected ever since the white man first knew about the stone. Pipes and artifacts are found all over the United States, among the ruins of ancient Indian campsites and villages, tending to prove the Indians assertion that the quarry was a common gathering place for all the tribes, or at least, that all Indians knew the veneration attached to the stone. The name for the stone comes from the artist George Catlin who was an early visitor to the quarries in 1835."

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We would like to thank the Chicago Pipe Collector’s Club for the exclusive rights of publishing their videos from the show.

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By Bob Tate

Flakes are one of the ways that pipe tobacco is made. Flake tobacco is made by pressing tobacco under extreme pressure for a period of time forming a cube. The cube is then sliced into strips called flakes. When you smoke flake tobacco it has to be packed differently than loose cut pipe tobacco. You can not simply fill the pipe and smoke it; you have to prepare the flakes first. There are many ways that flake tobaccos can be prepared. The way that you prepare a flake will have an effect in the taste of the tobacco and the way that the tobacco burns.

The larger you leave the pieces of flake, the stronger the flavor will be and the harder it will be to get the tobacco burning. Leaving the flakes whole or in large chunks will make the tobacco burn slow. This is a good technique to use when you are going to smoke outside as the wind will have less of an effect on the tobacco. Smaller pieces will make the flavor a little lighter and the tobacco will be easier to burn. It will also burn a little quicker as well. In this article I will describe a few of the different methods on how to prepare flakes for smoking. I have also included short videos of how to do each different method. Now onto the methods!

•Fold and Stuff Method – Take a flake of tobacco and fold it in half length wise (against the grain), down the middle. Then you fold the flake in half again, but this time fold it end to end (with the grain). The flake will now be in a square shape with four layers. Now lightly stuff the prepared flake into the pipe. If there is any tobacco sticking out of the end of the pipe, pull the tobacco back out of the bowl a little and trim off the excess tobacco and re-insert the flake. Make sure to leave a little bit of space between the tobacco and the rim. Adjust the draw by gently pushing on the tobacco with your finger and light the tobacco. By leaving the flake whole it will be a little hard to get the tobacco lit and going.

•Roll and Stuff Method– This is almost the same as the Fold and Stuff; but instead of folding the flake, you roll the flake. To do this you roll the flake length wise (with the grain) like a stick of chewing gum. You then insert the tobacco into the bowl. If the tobacco sticks out, just pull it out a bit and trim some of it off and re-insert it back into the bowl. Make sure to leave a little space between the tobacco and the rim.

•Rubbing Out Method – Rubbing out a flake is pretty much how it sounds. You rub the flake between your palms so the flake breaks apart into small pieces of tobacco. You can control how much the tobacco is rubbed out this way. You can lightly rub it out or you can fully rub it out. It is up to you how large or how small you want the pieces of tobacco to be. Once the tobacco is rubbed out, you then load the pipe the same way as you would with a mixture.

•Cutting Into Cubes Method – This is a method that I read about a couple of years ago and I used it almost exclusively when I started smoking flakes and I still use it frequently now. It was posted on a forum by George Dibos AKA LatakiaLover. This method involves cutting the flakes length wise (with the grain), into 1/4 inch or so strips. You then cut the strips across (against the grain) to make 1/4 or so cubes. You then gravity fill the bowl with the cubes of tobacco and do not use any pressure to pack. Just tap the side of the bowl to settle the tobacco. Make sure that you leave a little space between the tobacco and the rim. You then light the tobacco and smoke. While you are smoking make sure that you do not tamp the ash unless the tobacco will absolutely not light again. And when you do tamp, just let the weight of the tamper crush the ash. Do not use any pressure when tamping. This is the easiest way that I know of to smoke flakes. It was my favorite method to use with flakes as a beginner.

When I smoke flakes, I always pack the tobacco lighter than I do when I smoke a loose cut mixture. The reason that I do this is that the pieces of tobacco from a flake will swell up more than a loose cut mixture when they light on fire. So packing loosely allows room for expansion and prevents the tobacco from becoming too tight while smoking.

These are just a few of the ways to prepare flake tobacco and I hope that these tips will help you enjoy flakes a little more or get you into trying flakes if you haven’t tried them yet. If you haven’t tried smoking flakes before, you must give it a try because you are missing out on some truly great tobaccos. With these methods, you no longer have an excuse for not trying them or smoking them more often.

Happy Puffing!

On Friday, May 1 at The 2009 Chicagoland Int’l Pipe & Tobacciana Show, Dr. S. Peckus gave a 45-minute presentation entitled, "The Weird, Unusual, Imaginative and Curious Pipes".

The Program for Dr. Peckus’s talk read as follows; "Limitless imagination leads to limitless opportunities and creation of pipes that were never meant to be, but are. Human imagination has no boundaries and what one person sees as a piece of wood, a rock or convoluted deer antler, another person sees a pipe hiding in disguise. They willl maintain that a pipe was there all the time, you just had to knock off the superfluous bits. These pipes are one of a kind, created by a inquisitive few, to not necessarily look like pipes, did not even look as if they could be smoked, yet they were pipes and yes, they could be smoked and enjoyed.

On hand is a number of examples of such pipes and we will try to unravel their secrets and show their utility. One pipe in particular, besides being a piece of sculpture, is a complete smoker’s traveling companion. It’s a pipe and has compartments for extra tobacco and matches. Come, see this one and another bunch of weird creations. Some of these may be defined as folk art and some others as primitive art."

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For your viewing convenience, we have split the presentation into 9 clips of 5 minutes each. We would like to thank the Chicago Pipe Collector’s Club for the exclusive rights of publishing their videos from the show.

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On Friday, May 1 at The 2009 Chicagoland Int’l Pipe & Tobacciana Show, "Dr. Chuck" Gray gave a 1-hour, 20-minute presentation entitled, "Briar Pipe Repairs: Home Remedies".

The Program for Dr. Chuck’s seminar read as follows; "Dr. Chuck, as he is known, will discuss simple home "Do it Yourself" repairs and remedies you can do by hand, with a minimum of power tools and equipment. He will cover basic cleaning, the use of a retort, briar dent removal, oxidation removal, and waxing. I will have some handouts for the participants. Possible other topics depending on time: proper buffing techniques; nomenclature cleaning; logo cleaning; stem bending; re-staining; tenon tightening; file and sandpaper work; draft and slot opening; and faux amber replacement stems."

For your viewing convenience, we have split the presentation into 18 clips of 5 minutes each. We would like to thank the Chicago Pipe Collector’s Club for the exclusive rights of publishing their videos from the show.

You can also read the article covering "Briar Pipe Repairs: Home Remedies" right here on the site:

Briar Pipe Repairs: Home Remedies

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On Friday, May 1 at The 2009 Chicagoland Int’l Pipe & Tobacciana Show, Rob Cooper gave a 45-minute presentation entitled, "The State of the Estate Pipe Market in These Economic Troubled Times".

The Program for Rob’s talk read as follows; "Rob will talk about the current state of the pipe market. As a seller of high grade pipes around the world, he will talk about the typical demographic of the average global pipe collector and the relative economic insulation that they have due to that demographic. He has found that certain brands have slipped in price while others have sustained. He will talk about that as well as what he sees coming in the years ahead for our hobby. He hopes that the results, which many of you will find surprising, are to the positive."

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For your viewing convenience, we have split the presentation into 9 clips of 5 minutes each. We would like to thank the Chicago Pipe Collector’s Club for the exclusive rights of publishing their videos from the show.

You can also read two articles covering "The State of the Estate Pipe Market in These Economic Troubled Times" right here on the site:

Pipe Collecting on eBay - Rob Cooper’s Chicago Pipe Show Talk
Pipe Collecting on eBay - Rob Cooper’s Q & A

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Tad Gage and Fred Hanna gave a 1-hour presentation and seminar at The 2009 Chicagoland Int’l Pipe & Tobacciana Show on Saturday May 2, 2009.

For your viewing convenience, we have split the presentation into 13 clips of 5 minutes each.

The lighting is a little dark at the beginning of the first clip, but give it a minute and it is corrected.

Tad Gage authored the book, "Complete Idiots Guide To Cigars" and writes for Pipes & Tobaccos Magazine amongst many other accolades. Fred Hanna has written numerous articles about pipes and pipe smoking published in many venues.

The syllabus for the seminar was:

Introduction
How analyzing and understanding what you like enhances the experience and the fun
How tasting can lead to your own blending experiments

Know what you like, like what you know: tasting and describing tobaccos
Fred’s tobacco analysis and rating sheet (Fred)
Identifying individual components (Tad and Fred)
Using your eyes
Picking apart the blend (visual and tasting raw leaf)
Analyzing the components

Effective tasting and analysis techniques (Fred)
You can’t make a bad blend good
The right pipe (draft, airhole, briar, minimal cake)
Prepping, slow smoking, analyzing as you go
Analyzing cellared vs. “new” tobacco blends
The Cat’s out of the bag (the Soderman conundrum): once you’ve rehydrated an old tin, you have to smoke it
Some tips on describing what you’re tasting (Tad)

Trying Your Hand At Blending
Creating your own unique blend is a time honored tradition (Tad)
Makers work hard to create blends, but they’re not sacred
Be a chef: add ingredients a little at a time
Using straight base/blending ingredients vs. mixing already created blends
Use your tasting guide as a roadmap to creating your own (Fred)
Personal blending tips (Tad)
Home stoving of tobaccos (Fred)

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