What is Your Favorite 'Drug Store' Brand Pipe?

[mso489]

Is it just me, or do these pipes -- Grabow, Kaywoodie, Medico, Yellowbowl -- have limited and

spotty distribution? Seems like they don't merchandise much online. Their sites, if any, offer

limited shapes, not much information, and prices above retail. They don't give options on filters

and don't tell you whether or not they have stingers (those metal filter devices in the stems that

don't seem to help much). It seems like some CEO's sons at one of these firms could survey the

pipe scene and bring these outfits into the present and greatly increase sales. Benton, the Texas

manufacturer (I think) has pipes available through Iwan Ries, with the IR name on them; these

seem more attuned to the market than what you see at the Benton site. My favorite American pipes

are by a local carver who exhibits at the state fair and the local pipe show. It's always puzzled me

that the American manufacturers who reportedly make huge quantities of pipes don't seem to be

pitching them to me ... at all. I'd be interested in owning one or two ... I think ... but their

availability is illusive. Denmark and Dublin seem closer to home for pipe purposes.

 

[foggymountain]

Missouri Meerschaum.

 

[jhclark]

Does Medico not fall into this category? My first pipe was a Medico that my wife got me as a gift (so I don't know the price but I can't imagine it was more than $30...)

 

[wildcat]

@jhclark: Yes, Medico would be considered an OTC pipe. I've had some good ones! Enjoy!

Read more here:

http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/medico-pipes-anyone-know-any-history-here-of-common-drug-store-pipes

http://www.tobaccopipes.com/medico-history/

http://www.smfrankcoinc.com/history/index.htm

http://kaywoodie.myfreeforum.org/

 

[mso489]

I now see that COJ has a good selection of Grabow on its site. When on the site, I am always focused on

other brands. I believe they are also featured at some of the J&R outlets on I-95, though I don't get

out that way, for that purpose, much. But the American machine made pipe manufacturers are

distributing their goods somewhere I'm not going, maybe overseas? Out west? Rural areas only?

 

[rigmedic1]

My Favorite is a Dr. Grabow Royalton.

I have had this Viscount Author for 35 years, still smokes well.

This Starfire is my favorite Dr. Grabow shape:

 

[wildcat]

Nice Grabows! The Royaltons are sharp! Love my Royalton #65 Zulu.
Here are my #81s:

 

[buzkirk]

Sears sells alot of Dr Grabow
http://www.sears.com/food-grocery-tobacco-loose-tobacco/s-1038738

 

[tscull]

This is a blown up photo of my desk and on it the very first pipe I owned. I bought it from Key Drugs, a drugstore at the Eastview Mall outside Pittsford, NY in 1977. If anyone can help me identify it, I'd be grateful.

 

[alaskanpiper]

Kaywoodie. Grabow a close second.

 

[judcole]

I do not own any of the pipes mentioned in the OP. I do own a number of MMs, if you want to consider those drugstore pipes.

 

[buzkirk]

Mine is a Filterwell, bent bulldog

 

[acidpox]

Dr. Grabow for sure, I own 4 or 5 at the moment, also perfect candidates for starting to get into restoring hes one I did not to long ago. A made a thread but all my pics where lost in the great up date.

Before


After

 

[mso489]

MM cobs because I don't see the Dr. Grabow Royaltons I like at the drugstore ever. Even the MM's don't have acrylic stems, so would chew through pretty soon. How did this 2013 thread get recycled? My local Walgreens has a few Dr. Grabows and a few MM cobs, behind the check-out counter at floor level, so you have to peer over the candy rack to see them. Definitely not promoted. The Grabows are $35, the MM cobs about ten bucks.

 

[oldmooner]

My favorite "drugstore" pipe is the Kaywoodie (minus the stinger). I began many years ago with a Kaywoodie and some Amphora tobacco. I was about 18 at the time and will be 80 this month, so you can tell KW has had a pretty good run. Sorry, boys and girls, but you lost this old duffer when you mention "brylons". Is that the same as "The Pipe"? I have several of those from the 70s' and they are both hot and heavy, but I still smoke them off and on. Maybe one of these days I will catch on to the new pipespeak (Brylon, Vaper, etc, etc.), but I doubt it. What was that old adage about "an old dog" and "new tricks"? Ho Hum, I'm really too much like Popeye--I yam what I yam.

 

[PaulTheScandinavian]

Generally speaking,any older French made pipe such as Jeantet, Ropp, Brulor ecetera, make wonderful value for money,