Are Older Pipes Always Better, Or Not

I have on my [home] desk some pretty pipes. Included in this assortment are two Petersons that look very similar. One is a 1915-1922 version with the Ireland stamp, the other a prince with the Republic of Ireland stamp from the 50s. Both smoke very well and I paid about the same for them as estates. I also have some Peder Jeppesen pipes from early days as Neerup and more recently his own brand. The latter seems to smoke much better and there is talk on the Internet about some Albanian folks making pipes under his name in the middle years. Who knows what that means. Do older pipes ALWAYS smoke better? Hardly. Not sure if there are brands that are worse today than previously but that is likely...

No, but most older brands have higher perceived quality than their modern or currently produced counterparts.
There is also a myth that old wood smokes better due to longer curing times. I don't buy it. As long as the wood isn't wet, it has the same chance of smoking well.

I think 'better' is subjective. There is something to be said for the original no matter how well executed the facsimile. A piece of history vs a reissue or replication.
There is also reverance for those good ol days when things were built to last, where the workshops were situated uphill, both ways... not the these 'plasticine disposables' made today, which people will pay for.

Honestly, 90% of it is hype, plus its an ego-boost for the boy in us to collect that which is rare

Anything which cannot be attained easily is an instant win most of the time.
However I love to collect the old, the history, the hands it has changed in the last 100-120 years. It's an amazing experience.
Chris

I have twelve Petersons from the 1970s until 2001 (and those from the latter date may be 90s pipes, but that was when they were bought). They all smoke very well, and three are from the Sherlock Holmes series, one being the original from 1987. I have three pre-republic Petes that out perform them. Is it because they were well broken in or is the wood and how they were made the reason? Or is it all of that? I don't know for an absolute certainty, but I suspect it's all those reasons. One of the pre-repubs needed three salt and alcohol treatments to get it clean, but once done, it's a great smoker. In this case, the wood must be a large part of the reason it smokes so well.

There is also a myth that old wood smokes better due to longer curing times. I don't buy it. As long as the wood isn't wet, it has the same chance of smoking well.

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People tend to confuse the age of the burl when harvested with the age of the pipe. They think that because a pipe is 100 years old, the briar is 100 year old briar. The age of the briar is the age that it grew in the ground, no more, no less.
Myths abound in the Hobby. Listing them all would probably make a book. I can speak to a few of them as they relate to this topic. I'll start with my area of interest, Barling. I've seen listings on eBay that claim that Barling wood was 100 to 200 years old, and that even 500 year old wood was used. This is nonsense. Barling never made such claims. In the 1920's they put out a brochure entitled "The Romance Of The Barling Pipe", wherein they covered their harvesting and aging and manufacturing process. They wrote that they looked for burls that were 50 years old, not 100, not 200 and certainly 500. That would be about right for the burl to have developed the kind of capillary structure, what we see as grain.
What they did that was different from their competitors was that they controlled the process from the ground to the sales counter.
Like all of the British makers in the 19th century, Barling originally bought bowls turned in St. Claude and did the finishing and mounting in their own factory. Some bowls were turned in England, but not all of them. After 1906, Barling made the decision to make all of their own bowls.
The other makers continued to supplement their made in house stock with bowls imported from France, and Germany. Many of the bowls stamped Made in England or Made in London were made elsewhere and stamped with England, London, Birmingham, Chester, or whatever because there was no legal requirement for bowls to be stamped with the country of origin. That Dunhill, Sasieni, BBB, Comoy, GBD, or whatever in your collection may have been made somewhere else and simply stamped with the company name.
As detailed by Jon Guss in his superb article, "How Many Angels? Another Look At The Barling Transition", in 1928, Barling sought to amend the Merchandise Marks Act to require that all briar pipes and briar bowls imported into the UK be required to be stamped with the country of origin. The rest of the British Pipe trade, Dunhill, Comoy, Sasieni, etc, united to defeat the amendment. Comoy went so far as to say that English carvers lacked the skill to produce pipes of the quality they needed. Except for Barling, "Made In England" or London or whatever has no verifiable meaning. Like many myths in the Hobby, perception outranks reality. Made in England, London, Birmingham, Chester, etc is one of those.
Blanket statements like older pipes are always better are insupportable. Exceptions will abound. Cheap basket pipes were made, as well as high grades. Age doesn't turn a cheap pipe into a high grade. It's just an old cheap pipe.

Honestly, 90% of it is hype, plus its an ego-boost for the boy in us to collect that which is rare

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There is some truth to that, but it extends to modern pipes as well. Does a $30,000 Nordh or Knudsen really smoke better than a pipe costing 1% of that amount? According to several collectors I've spoken with over the years, no. The ego factor is just as prevalent with contemporary pipes as with vintage pipes.

A well made artisan pipe, made from good briar and vulcanite should be better than a similar estate (even NOS) from one of the storied makers.

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Depends on the maker. With the exception of Von Erck, I haven't found that to be true. And I will admit that I haven't sampled a wide range of artisan pipes - the exchequer will only stand so much. But a well made artisan pipe can be as good a smoker as any pipe made by one of the great makers of years past. Every maker produced pipes of varying quality. There are a lot of variables that go into a pipe.
Going back to Barling for a moment, they were exceptionally picky in what finally made it out to the sales room. They were picky about the wood that they dug up and tossed out a lot of it after the initial boiling and curing. They were picky about the cured blocks and tossed out a lot of that. They were picky about the cutting, which is where the rubber meets the road, and more went into the furnace or to other makers. They were picky about the turned bowls, selecting less than 10% to go to finishing. And they didn't turn a bowl and immediately finish it. They let the turned bowls season before finishing to ensure dimensional stability. Think of that as the tenon fit stays good. Show me an artisan who could take that route and stay in business today. And very few artisans have the ability to dig up burls to meet their standards, season them to their standards, and cut them. Most buy blocks.
Where artisans may have an advantage is with the handmade stems. The stem work of todays best carvers is spectacular. But I'm very happy with my Barling stems and bits. Yeah, they were picky about that part as well. They laid the groundwork for much of what is practiced today.
True, other makers, such as Charatan and Sasieni, didn't produce the greatest stems and bits. But many of Comoy's stems and bits are just beautiful.
What I like about old pipes are the styling and the patina. And, well, they just smoke great if they haven't been abused.
I also like the artisan made pipes that I've bought. I can find great pipes from 130+ years ago, and from today.

I would propose that one reason this myth exists is because when you buy a new unsmoked pipe there is usually some break-in period that must be endured before the pipe becomes a good smoker. I've got modern Savinellis, a Pete and even a LaRocca that have become great smokers, but they all took a varied amount time and patience to get there. My experience is that when you buy a nicely refurbish estate pipe they smoke better right out of the box having already been broken in.
Having said that, I'm on the side of older things are cooler. There is no logical reason for this, but using something with some history to it is somehow more satisfying than using a modern one? I've got a couple of pre WWII Kaywoodies and when I smoke them I feel that connection with the past. I imagine the teeth marks were made as the pipe was clenched by the pilot of a B-17 flying a mission over Germany, although its more likely they were made by a clerk sitting a desk in Des Moines.
To sum up. Old pipes are better. or not.

Well put Jesse, the history, the vintage, the patina, coloring, knowing I have something from a Marque from an era when they were at their pinnacle attracts me more than artisan pipes. That being said, there are a number of pipe makers who have that touch of vintage and class about them.
The number one reason the older brands have faded away is because of corporate greed. Lowering of process standards and overall urge to milk the consumers by giving less at every transaction. Look at what Cadogan did to Comoy's.
IMHO Dunhill is the only marque remaining who is somewhat sticking to quality although things have changed drastically with them as well.
I would very much like to see a crazy billionaire buying all the old marques of old and resurrecting them to the same higher standards albeit in small batches.
@swhipple Well put sir about the break-in period. My new Peterson smoke wonderful after they were broken in slowly. Plus there is an attraction between all of us about the things of the era gone by. It will be a sad moment and I assure you it will come when the newer generation will forget about their history. We all but can pray that day comes albeit very slowly.
Cheers,

Chris :puffpipe:

That was a well written summary Jesse.

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+1

:idea:
Sometimes "better" can be defined as a wider range of shapes, for me at least, I mean, just look at a Dunhill catalog from the '20's or 30's and the variants are expansive compared to their modern counterparts. Same thing with the smaller sized pipes which were popular in the UK, those styles are difficult to find nowadays unless one accepts an Italian nosewarmer weighing 60g+ to be similar, and the old (mostly French-made) all-one-piece allbriar pipes? Nobody makes 'em anymore.
Expanding on the root talk, the UK manufacturers of yore had especially developed quite intensive proprietary curing methods, most of which would be nearly impossible to replicate today unless alotta money was willing to be spent, although many simply air-cured, many of the fabled British pipemakers had some special something or other process which in many cases was actually patented, one example would be Sasieni:

http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/a-look-into-the-sasieni-oil-curing-method
They could not continue that process after the war because the financial costs were too high.
I love both worlds and my collection is a small clutch of modern handmades co-existing alongside mostly interwar era Britblasts.
Speaking of sandblasts, that's another area where things may have been "better", I'm unsure how much of this has to do with the wood as compared to the process, but there are very few makers today (all of whom command very high prices) capable of coming anywhere close to those old British sandblasts, the early Dunhills in particular achieved a quality which imo has yet to have been matched (except by Michael Parks who consistently produces amazing early Shell-like blasts).
And yeah,

as mentioned, the historical aspect also adds cachet and lends a reverent aura to the old stuff.
"They don't make 'em like they used to...",

a true cliché regarding most factory-made pipes.
::

I can't speak to a wide variety of shapes as I tend to prefer Rhodies and Bulls. What I can say is in Brit pipes there was a significant change when companies like Comoy and GBD stopped using St. Claude made stummels. The pipes they marketed after that period were not the same quality as those made before the change. Maybe that has to do with the point Jesse made about the makers complaint that there were not a sufficient number of talented workmen to produce that kind of volume but there is a difference in what is referred to as "post Codogan" pipes. Generalizing about anything is pretty unstable ground. There are exceptions to everything but as a rule I find older Brit (factory made) pipes tend to smoke better than their newer counterparts. But then too better is a subjective word. My better is someone else's worse. What I have come to accept is that I personally prefer certain vintages and makers because I like the way their pipes smoke. That of course doesn't imply better or worse, just preferred. When there is a change with a maker's process, often there is a subsequent change in the final outcome, but better or worse is really a value judgement and made from a personal perspective. "Not what they use to be" is correct, they aren't the same but it's also one of those value judgements, probably more properly phrased "Not to my liking".

The subject of sandblasts is an interesting one. I love the old craggy blasts that were produced by Dunhill and others. From what I've read, the origin of wood chosen to be sandblasted made a difference, ie: Algerian VS Corsican.

Aesthetics change as well. Danish pipes tend toward a refned shallow understate blast. Many people love these. I'm more in the "why did you bother" camp - they're boring.
Certainly the tools to do amazing blasts have improved. Parks' blasts, as MLC pointed out, Cooke, Von Erck, Alden, Davis, and others have produced superb blasts with a laser like clarity. This one by Paul Tatum is spectacular.

But the effect is different from the blasts produced decades ago. So if you want that kind of a blast, you're probably going to have to search out a lightly used vintage pipe that's managed to avoid the evil buffer.

This one by Paul Tatum is spectacular.

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I'd say it's beyond spectacular!
A real showstopper & jawdropper!

But the effect is different from the blasts produced decades ago. So if you want that kind of a blast, you're probably going to have to search out a lightly used vintage pipe that's managed to avoid the evil buffer.

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So true.

And the evil buffer is truly eevil in the case of old blasts, so often I've seen good blasts ruined by overbuffing --- I can live with honest wear in the case of an older blast, but I don't even waste my time anymore with overbuffed examples, regardless of rarity.

Not sure if modern artisan's have the resources to properly cure briar like the factories of yesteryear. I know there are a couple guys out there at the top end that do, but I think it's probably rare to find something that's been aging for greater than 3 years. Castello can and does do it, but the average cottage guy? Dunno.
I know this was a big deal in the golden age, but I'm not experienced enough to know if this real is a big deal.

I love old pipes, but I also own artisan pipes. My best smokers are old pipes that have been well smoked but we'll cared for. My theory is that the wood has absorbed the oils and tars over time, and even with reaming and cleaning the wood has still seasoned to a point where it is perfect for smoking quality.

I love old pipes too, and especially love some of the old shell blasts. The reason I tend not to gravitate toward old pipes is primarily the stems. Some have great buttons, but for some reason those old vulcanite stems have a tendancy to turn green when I look at them. I don't know if it's a chemical reaction or what, but in any event it drives me crazy. I just don't have the time to deal with that sort of ongoing maintenance.