Kaywoodie/KBB/Yello Bole Collectors Thread
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Oh, I'm always looking for kaywoodies and grabows that are older - mostly for restore practice. I'm just not willing to shell out oodles of cash for them.
I also mostly look for fixer-uppers. From what I have seen, most Kaywoodies and Grabows were smoked with codger tobacco and thus unlikely to be burnt out or riddled with heat fissures. There have been exceptions, but not many. The biggest problems are cut stingers and chewed stems.
Prices were never high on the more mundane Kaywoodies. But they have been pretty flat for a while now. Even a really nice Super Grain won't pull decent money. It's a buyer's market. The supply will run out eventually. I've decided to store the older Kaywoodie pipes I'm not smoking so the stems don't oxidize. They are too nice to sell for peanuts.
I wonder if the pricing situation has to do with the recent influx of some unsmoked or NOS Kaywoodies. Even those, though, have not been doing as well as they probably should. Some better grade and rare shapes in unsmoked condition have drawn very little money.
samcoffeeman, I generally agree with your assessment. What is getting my attention, though, is the inability of even rare shape/rare line old Kaywoodies to bring a good price. Only Valitchka seems to be pulling it off reasonably well, and that is mostly down to name recognition and followers. What he got for an Export Flame Grain was quite impressive.
Perhaps. But that can go the other way, too. Collectors, as opposed to smokers only, likely want the stingers. As a constant Kaywoodie hunter I find it amazing that many listings do not mention or show the stinger. I know I have not bid on many a pipe just because I have found that if this datum is not posted it is likely the seller hasn't a clue. Too many times I have "asked a question" of the seller and then had to explain what a stinger is.
Over the past four or five years of Ebay cruising I see many KWs relisted several times, unsold for various reasons - stinger questions probably among them.
They are easy to cut off so that should not affect a bid if one wants a pipe. But they are impossible to put back on and once cut it's cut forever.
And then with Kaywoodies the style and dating of the stinger gets involved.
Lately I have been trying to replace my lost #7713...for less than $100.00. Good luck with that.
@ newbroom, I did not communicate clearly. I did not say nicer in comparison to the pipe initially being discussed. Only trying to say that nice KW's are out there for not a lot of money. Not saying you can get a rare KW for cheap. But you certainly can make a nice little collection of KW's for reasonable prices.
I've got several kaywoodies. Even have a 4 digit meerschaum lined with stinger intact that's immaculate. Got it for less than 20$ last year. Also have a white one that was unsmoked that I got with two others for 35$. After smoking it, I kind of wish I wouldn't have smoked it.
Well, our influence isn't that great, this one failed to make the top 1000 Watched Pipe Auctions list, so I can't tell you how many folks are watching it.
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