Part of the fun of shopping pipes is making some endless online or physical excursions to look at pipes, most of which you won't remember. Mostly this teaches you a lot, and results in some fair, to good, to excellent, to outstanding pipes, at appropriate not budget wrecking prices. As with any other activity, you make mistakes, and you also learn from those. Here are a few of mine, and you might want to share a few of yours:
Gosh, that was a pretty French-made pipe, a graceful arching slightly bent smooth Dublin with the most lithe shank and stem, really beautiful. Except, something about the airway always snagged pipe cleaner fluff, something I'd never experienced before with any of dozens of other pipes. Boring out an extra thin airway on a delicate pipe, wasn't likely to work. I eventually traded it off after clearing that airway bowl after bowl until the pipe wasn't pretty to me any more.
A great basket pipe, a "Made in London" traditional straight billiard that made you hear British patriotic tunes in your head. But the bowl cracked where it met the shank. I donated it to a friend who needed not much mileage in the smoking department.
Then there was that Ben Wade, an impressive blast panel billiard that was love at first sight. Somehow the finish never eased into a well-loved, well-used patina, and I finally traded it off toward a pipe I liked better. Nothing wrong with it, it just didn't age well, looked a bit plastic after years.
So live and learn. Several pipes started out problematical and blossomed, big time, but that's another story, another post. What are your learning experiences?
Gosh, that was a pretty French-made pipe, a graceful arching slightly bent smooth Dublin with the most lithe shank and stem, really beautiful. Except, something about the airway always snagged pipe cleaner fluff, something I'd never experienced before with any of dozens of other pipes. Boring out an extra thin airway on a delicate pipe, wasn't likely to work. I eventually traded it off after clearing that airway bowl after bowl until the pipe wasn't pretty to me any more.
A great basket pipe, a "Made in London" traditional straight billiard that made you hear British patriotic tunes in your head. But the bowl cracked where it met the shank. I donated it to a friend who needed not much mileage in the smoking department.
Then there was that Ben Wade, an impressive blast panel billiard that was love at first sight. Somehow the finish never eased into a well-loved, well-used patina, and I finally traded it off toward a pipe I liked better. Nothing wrong with it, it just didn't age well, looked a bit plastic after years.
So live and learn. Several pipes started out problematical and blossomed, big time, but that's another story, another post. What are your learning experiences?