Antique Shop Finds
- Thread starter pappymac
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Always worthwhile poking around antique shops; finds like that don't come everyday. Congrats X 3!
Am interested in the S&G too. I have 1 I bought from an online seller and didn't know what I had til a fellow pipe forum member @ another site figured it out for me. Had never heard of them before and it turned out to have been made in 1900. Yours is no doubt rather old as the firm went out of business in 1950. But first half of the 20th century they were ubiquitous in the UK. Heck, they were even Sherlock Holmes tobacconist.
Noticeable how pipes in antique stores vary from region to region. In upstate New York, I found something in every antique shop on the main street of a fairly small town. Here in central N.C, at the state Fairgrounds flea market (one of the ways they use the Fairgrounds other than staging the fair) I have found few pipes, and then the seller knew nothing about them but had them priced way up. Smaller antique shops act antagonistic when you ask about tobacco pipes, like you'd asked about buying a machine gun. Regionally, I guess this was cigarette territory. I've never found pipes in yard sales or other venues either. However, we do have an excellent long-standing (since the 1970's) independent pipe shop (Pipes by George), a Tinderbox at the mall, a pipe shop in an adjoining suburb, and a J&R with cigars, pipe tobaccos, and pipes a ways east near I-95, so there is interest, but it is specialized. Where the used pipe go, I'd guess ebay.
mso489,
Maybe it had to do with the northeast being better off economically than most of the south. I've only been searching out the shops for the last five years and most of what I find in Lower Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and SE Texas have been Dr. Grabows, Kaywoodies and pipes in that range. Then again, most of these shops have been more junktique vs. antiques.
The pipes I found this weekend were in good antique shops in Beaumont, TX. Beaumont had a strong economy from the early 1900s until the big shipyards started cutting back in the late 1970s. That area still has a lot of oil refineries but most of the men working in the plants are cigarette and cigar smokers. (I grew up in SE Texas.)
Maybe it had to do with the northeast being better off economically than most of the south. I've only been searching out the shops for the last five years and most of what I find in Lower Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and SE Texas have been Dr. Grabows, Kaywoodies and pipes in that range. Then again, most of these shops have been more junktique vs. antiques.
The pipes I found this weekend were in good antique shops in Beaumont, TX. Beaumont had a strong economy from the early 1900s until the big shipyards started cutting back in the late 1970s. That area still has a lot of oil refineries but most of the men working in the plants are cigarette and cigar smokers. (I grew up in SE Texas.)
Very nice! pappy', my late wife grew up in Eastern N.C. and had an extended family that tended toward large gatherings. They were comfortably well-off for the most part, but as far as I can remember, no one in the family, in any generation, smoked a pipe, but there were certainly cigarette smokers in the group. It just wasn't a cultural thing. Perhaps in the western part of the state, which is a decidedly different culture, pipes may have had some foothold. I haven't shopped pipes there. That's an interesting analysis about the economy and pipe smoking. My sense is that pipes were generally available at working-man prices, so it was more an image thing. People spent more time outdoors, for work and recreation, so maybe pipe smoking wasn't so popular. Even in the coastal communities, where my mother-in-law's people were from, there wasn't much of a pipe culture that I saw. The old salts with their pipes seems to have been more of a New England thing. There are probably pockets somewhere in the region, but I haven't come across them, and they certainly haven't left a trail of pipes! Not antique nor junktique.
Hey Pappy, what antique shops in Beaumont did you visit? Although I don't actively scour the local shops I do occasionally wander through them. When I ask about pipes they act like they've never heard of pipes. I've had better luck at local estate sales. The wife found my Peterson Shamrock and my Tinderbox Milano at a couple of them.
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