Aye laddies,
just coming back to this as it's all very interesting, and I forgot a couple of things, and I'd also like to denote a few cultural traits I've come across in my manic scramblings and copious notetakings.
I forgot all about the REJECT pipes, you've probably seen them before. I dunno why they chose such a horrible phrase to stamp a pipe with, but I reckon they were honest, and I think the REJECT pipes wooda been cheap.
You'll also see UK pipes stamped Foreign Made, which may have been cheapies?
Imported goods not from the Commonwealth in those days were stamped "Foreign" or "Foreign Made" and were subject to a higher import tax than those in the "Commonwealth Preference Band."
I also forgot about the immense popularity of Falcon Pipes, which were quite affordable workaday instruments for the daily pleasures of pipe smoking, I reckon they got big in the 50's or 60's?
A UK pipeman with a Falcon fill'd with Condor is the classic image of an "Old Codger".
And perhaps the Peterson System pipes were more affordable?
The knock-off Peterson style pipes certainly were.
A working-man didn't really visit British High Street posh tobacconists, in general, they'd usually go to the newsagent, Co-op, grocer or F.W.Woolworth aka "Woolies".
The Co-op's had mobile shops that served the countryside wayback when before everyone could afford a car.
Post-war austerity in the UK was pretty severe, I recently got a hardbound volume of Punch (hoping for adverts, but they're not included in the hardbound editions) and it was from 1947, many stories about people wearing thick coats indoors due to lack of coal, and many other necessities were hard to come by, thrift was not only a way of life but nearer a religion for many folks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postwar_Britain#Austerity.2C_1945.E2.80.931950
Most old men everywhere smoked bar, plug, twist or pigtail tobaccos which they cut up with a knife, milder baccy was generally more aimed at the "Officer Classes" .
Most pipemen owned just the one pipe and possibly one “good one” for Market Days, Sundays, Weddings, Christenings and Funerals.
In many cases, pipecleaners weren't necessarily deemed particularly needed,
"Older Brits, by and large, run their pipes with a thick coat of cake and tend to regard blowing down the stem hard, as adequate cleaning. Condor and St. Bruno Flake, the two biggest seller do leave a ghost. We also tend to knock our pipes out on the nearest hard surface – ashtrays, boot heels, fence posts, telegraph poles and even the pavement.
The Old Boys as I've said before when their pipes started gurgling excessively or blocked completely, would simply take their pipes apart, turn down wind, blow sharply through the stem to dislodge any foreign objects and goo, give the pipe a flick with a particular snap of the wrist, reassemble the thing and carry on a conversation on auto pilot.
Occasionally if a large bird's feather was found it would be used as a pipe cleaner – but this was by no mean a daily occurrence. I suspect from some of the pipes that I've had from E bay, this treatment is still pretty common and is probably why in books of the period any pipe man was always described as “smoking a foul smelling old pipe.”
Older working men then smoked what were called “Cutty Pipes” - short Stonehaven Briars available from any newsagents. These pipes were greatly favoured because of their cheapness and the fact that being short they were not so readily broken when carelessly thrust into a pocket. One of these would only require an outlay of 7/6d ( £0.37.5 )
I love UK dialect and slang, so here's a bit 'o that.
skint = slang for penniless
borassic lint = skint, in Cockney
"I cant go out tonight I'm borassic"
A ciggy could be known as a "gasper", especially if it was one of the stronger variety, like Capstan Full.
Something kinda funny to Yank eyes here would be this, we all know what shag tobacco is (altho at some point 'shag' also became slang for sex), and most know that "fag" was Britslang for a ciggy, but what about this curious combo to more modern eyes?
Skint teenagers would go on ashtray raids to grab “dog ends” (butts) and combine all the salvaged baccy into a new handrolled ciggy.
One thing to keep in mind too, is just how much things have changed in the USA, Balkan Sobranie was technically a "drugstore brand" because it could be had at just about every pharmacy or newsstand, William Faulkner in Oxford Mississippi got his Sobranie (and St. Bruno!) from a Rexall drugstore!
Greg Pease has written well on the topic of Sobranie, and especially how it's unlikely that there'll ever be such a legendary blend to replace it, in the sense of universal high-praise, because it was widely popular, widely known, and widely available, most everybody knew about it and it was available at arms reach - unlike Fred Hanna's beloved Marcovitch, which may have been an even better blend, that would have been totally forgotten to the mists of time if he hadn't had given it its proper due. But I doubt Marco was ever available OTC, thus the dust of obscurity, unlike Sobranie whom looms so large.
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All of the above is secondary info to me, and I'm passing it along because I find this kinda stuff of deep interest, so take it all with a grain of salt, I certainly ain't no scholar!
Hoping for a few of our UK brothers to tell us better details!
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