Corn Cob Pipe Club of Virginia

Recently I acquired this vintage corn cob pipe from the 1930s with the label "Compliments of the Corn Cob Pipe Club -- Richmond, Virginia". There is actually a rather interesting history to the "Corn Cob Pipe Club". During the Great Depression, one of the few forms of free entertainment allotted to the American public was radio. At an era before television, most households had a radio as their main entertainment and news source. Most radio stations started out as independent local stations catering to their local audience, but by the 1930s, financial pressures brought on by the Great Depression forced most independent stations to join networks. By joining a network they benefitted from a nationwide audience and thereby attracted national advertisers. As a result, the radio became a prime means for companies to advertise their goods and services and reach a nationwide audience as well as allow the public to benefit from music and programs that they might not otherwise have had access to hear. Companies would then sponsor popular radio programs just as TV sponsors today will market around popular shows and sporting events.
WRVA in Richmond, VA was one such station and it was during the 1930s that they began broadcasting a traditional music show that they called the Corn Cob Pipe Club. Based on the fictional Virginia town of "Virginia Crossroads", the show was a mixture of comedy, popular and traditional songs, and even a minstrel duo (Sawdust and Moonshine). The show became immensely popular and "Corn Cob Pipe Club" chapters were formed in all 48 states at the time and by 1934 boasted over 272,000 members. The Corn Cob Pipe Club even published a monthly magazine called "Smoke" that went out to its members.
I believe that the pipe below would have been one that a "member" would have received upon joining one of the Club's state chapters. It's actually a fairly thick cob for the period with a traditional bamboo stem. The cob bowl is actually fairly rough and retains much of the original cob characteristics. Definitely an interesting artifact of early radio as well as cob pipe history.

Thanks guys. I try to keep my eye out for interesting old cobs. They also serve as inspiration for our Old Dominion cob pipe line.

Dot,
I haven't found a lot of info re: when the radio program ended. From what I've been able to piece together, the show most likely lasted through the decade of the 1930s but probably was off the air by the '40s. By the 1940s you enter into the golden age of the "Big Band" music era which began to replace the traditional folk music of the '20s and '30s as the popular music genre on the radio as well as in the movies. With the show going off air and the publication of the monthly magazine coming to an end, I would expect that the "fan clubs" that existed in all 48 States at the time would have quickly dissolved just as modern fan clubs tend to do when the TV show they enjoy goes off air or the celebrity they follow falls out of the spotlight.
One interesting tidbit about the radio station that originally aired the program. WRVA was founded in 1925 by the Larus and Brother Tobacco Company. One of their famous pipe tobacco brands was Edgeworth Tobacco.