Buying a Briar Pipe

I have bought pipes from EBAY, off forums, from flea Markets and some lower end New Pipes from Etailers. Honestly if your on a budget buy from the classifieds here. You can get some good deals and coming from a fellow Pipe smoker you will get a close to a guarantee as you can get with estate pipes. If you do go the ebay route try and focus on the sellers who sell pipes not antique shops that happen across some pipes.

Many Forums members are devoted to estate pipes because they are terrific values on good pipes, if you

shop carefully and know what you are doing. Personally, I'd steer you toward buying one or two new moderately

priced pipes so you'll likely get good quality, and have a basis of comparison. A good pipe you can buy inexpensively

is an unfinished, unfiltered Savenelli, available at Cup O Joes or smokingpipes.com for about $44 to $50. These

darken and finish themselves and are usually excellent smokers. The house pipes at Iwan Ries (iwanries.com) called

Iwan Ries Exclusives, sell for about $34 for compact pipes, and $48 to$52 for medium sized (Group 4) pipes. These

are made by Benton in Texas of Algerian briar and are fine smokers. These will get you started, and give you a

comparison when you start shopping estate pipes. I think it will increase your learning curve -- so you don't get

confused by a defective estate pipe with problems. If you do start with estate pipes, buy one for $60 or $70 from

smokingpipes.com, which will clean it up right, and give you an accurate assessment of the pipe.

+1 on what Derrick said, but eventually you'll need to explore the full range of what's out there in the briar world, and while you can certainly get a good pipe for a reasonable sum, they're still not cheap. If on the other hand, you've been smoking cobs, I'd like to suggest that you can get a really fine smoker for a very reasonable price. I've got briars that run the gamut from basket pipes, some of which are excellent smokers, to Dunhills and better (just as good, I might add,) hardly a day goes by that I don't smoke a cob. Missouri Meerschaum makes a fine pipe, and then there's my new-found love--Old Dominion Cobs--a new entry into the field, and a superlative smoker. In short, please don't think that a cob is inferior in any way. Cobs are every bit as good as briars; just a heck of a lot less expensive. And wearing a suit and tie to work every day didn't stop me from having a cob dangling from my jaws.

Unless you are confident in your pipe refurbishing skills and enjoy that sort of thing, I would not recommend EBay. Look to members here who sell clean, quality estate pipes.

Hi BridDog,
Welcome and nice to meet you.
Whatever pipe you get you want to make sure that the technical cuts are well made. The following three points should help you.
The draught hole should be centered and meet the bowl at the bottom (not below) of the tobacco chamber.

The walls of the bowl should be at least 1/4" thick.

A pipe cleaner should run through the mouthpiece into the bottom of the bowl without interference.
This is very basic but should help you get a better pipe. Most sellers should be able and willing to tell you these points. Good luck.

birddog:
As some others have said, I wouldn't recommend eBay for your first pipe purchase. It would be better to go with a company that is known and trusted for the quality of its products.
I'd suggest checking out the estate pipes offered by SmokingPipes.com. Here's a link to what they currently have in stock from Peterson: http://www.smokingpipes.com/pipes/estate/ireland/index.cfm.
We all have favorite, go-to Internet retailers for pipes and tobaccos. For me, it's SmokingPipes.com. It's possible, though, that others also offer estate pipes that would fall in your price range.
BTW, I'm not suggesting you never buy a pipe from eBay. Maybe a quarter of my own collection was acquired that way. I'm just suggesting that you not start there as a first-time briar buyer. You don't want to have to worry about unseen damage and flaws, replacement stems that aren't mentioned, counterfeits, and pipes in need of serious cleaning/refurbishing. For your first pipe, you deserve better than that.
Bob

Make the Trip to FLINT

Paul's Pipe shop has briar pipes for under $50 and even has deals sometimes buy one get one...for their "FAMOUS" oil cured pipes
Also i've never been, but met the folks at the Chicago show, they'll treat you like a king. Go with some buddies and make a day of it. It'll be one of your best pipe smoking memories by the next day and that pipe will hold a special place in your heart, rack, and betwixt the teeth

Just sent you a PM.