Do You Have A Steed In Your Herd?

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newbroom

Lifer
Jul 11, 2014
6,087
6,394
Florida
Do you have a pipe or pipe shape that always hits the mark? A pipe that works no matter your pace?

A pipe that responds to your every mood, despite repeatedly being smoked with different blends?

If you do, you're very fortunate. Every now and then I think, "this is the one"...and most of those have survived to be true to my tastes.

We get excited when a purchase works out, when a pipe smokes divinely, no matter the blend...these are rare and deserve to be well kept...

One of my first sits unused with a small shank crack, awaiting my initiative to send it to 'someone' to band it.

Still...thankfully, I have some others that fill the bill...I mean, besides my corn cobs.

 

warren

Lifer
Sep 13, 2013
11,699
16,207
Foothills of the Chugach Range, AK
Maybe I'm not discerning enough but . . . I have 28 pipes at the moment and each one smokes very well, every time, all the time if I hold up my end of the experience. I see no reason to keep a pipe that can't perform. It hasn't always been so, only in the last ten years or so have I been fully satisfied with my rack and three years since I purchased a pipe.

 

kola

Lifer
Apr 1, 2014
1,484
2,339
Colorado Rockies, Cripple Creek region
For 3 years now I have a workhorse, "never-let-me-down" pipe, a 1980's Peterson Deluxe 3S. She gets used on a daily basis as well. I bought her for 100 beans or so.
Before that my best pipe was my first real briar pipe, a JM Boswell swirl-cut pipe that smoked like a dream. I lost the sucker somewhere in my travels and was heartbroken for weeks. I still have hopes that she'll show up somewhere, maybe in the barn under some old horse poop.

 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
Like warren, maybe I'm not discerning enough, but I feel I have about twenty pipes that do everything I can ask, for their size and shape, and about twenty more right on their heels, completely satisfying. The other thirty are good dependable smokes, no complaints. I've had a few disappointments, but I've traded them off, and half of those were maybe just not right for me. In fairness, these have been accumulated over decades, and I shop for pipes, sometimes considering one for a year or two, so I often have researched a lot and deliberated even more.

 
Jan 4, 2015
1,858
11
Massachusetts
A number of years back I came across a pre-Codogan GBD 9438 saddle bit bent Rhodesian (French version) and it was one of those pipes. Now I grab them up whenever I see one that isn't outrageously price. They are getting few and far between. Seems like a lot of others have come to the same conclusion.

 

Chasing Embers

Captain of the Black Frigate
Nov 12, 2014
43,248
108,348
If I have to pick, it would have to be any of my four Weavers. They almost smoke themselves.

 

daimyo

Lifer
May 15, 2014
1,460
4
Honestly, I think I have a small stable of pretty darn good smokers. A few must be paired properly and perhaps some is that I've learned the pipes but over all, they smoke well or they would be gone. That said, my Cavicchi Elephant Foot has never had a single lackluster smoke. It may be that it favors Balkans and I only smoke Balkans in it but every bowl is a great experience. Wonderfully open draw, smokes down as far as I wish to take it, tasted nice even on the first few bowls, it's my sweetheart pipe.

 

northernneil

Lifer
Jun 1, 2013
1,390
1
I find it depends more on me, packing / lighting technique, then on the pipe itself. I can pack all my pipes to smoke beautifully, but I cam also pack them to smoke like shit if I'm not paying attention.

 

tarak

Lifer
Jun 23, 2013
1,528
15
South Dakota
I can't say I have one that outshines the others. I keep going back to one...I don't know if it actually is any better but I do. Its not even the most expensive, crazy enough.

 

jkrug

Lifer
Jan 23, 2015
2,867
8
I've got just under 30 pipes right now and they are all good smokers as far as I'm concerned. I can't say I could pick one that stands out as smoking any better than any of the others? Like northerneil, if one of my pipes is smoking poorly it's most likely a poor packing job or I'm not paying enough attention to smoking it. :puffy:

 

settersbrace

Lifer
Mar 20, 2014
1,565
5
I've got several that fit the bill and I'm trying to increase the number of top shelf burners as we speak. I've had some great luck with English pipes, old machine mades (50 or more years old) and some more recent hand mades. They may not push everyone's buttons aesthetically since I go for classic shapes but those Brits know how to engineer a good smoking pipe IMO. I have some very fine smoking Italian pipes as well and two Dane's that are sublime smokers no matter what I stuff in the bowl. If you just keep trading, selling and not allow yourself to become to attached to the way a pipe looks over how it smokes I think anyone can get a good rotation of reliable pipes that'll do it all no matter what the budget.

 

samcoffeeman

Can't Leave
Apr 6, 2015
441
4
Yup. I have many excellent smoking pipes, but one that is exactly as you describe. It is an old(1950s-60s) Le Mans panel billiard from the Chacom factory in France, Algerian briar. I smoke that the most of any of my pipes, it has the thickest cake, and smokes every blend tried n true. I'm still in tobacco trial phase, although I do have my regulars. Any Va or Va/Per goes through this pipe, and if I don't like the flavor in this pipe I know I won't like it in any other pipe neither.
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igloo

Lifer
Jan 17, 2010
4,083
5
woodlands tx
In my roundup of well used abused pipes they all deliver about the same . What makes them special is the long term relationship with each one . Each pipe has its own personality once the piper learns this then the two become one . The little bend in the shank ,the way it feels in the hand ,that spot of birds eye ,that worn spot on the stem and the one on the shank worn down by your thumb over time . Make friends with your pipes regardless of what you paid or whose name is on the shank .

 

jmui

Might Stick Around
May 5, 2015
52
0
Beautiful panel Sam! My steed would have to be my Baki Pot! A Meer. Wish I knew how to insert a picture of it. But it does the trick every time no matter how I pack it or whatever the tobacco.

 

newbroom

Lifer
Jul 11, 2014
6,087
6,394
Florida
Ok, warren, mso...maybe you're not discerning...but who amongst us is not at least developing that discernment?

From the ease with which a pipe will load, considering the fit of your fingertip to perhaps what you perceive to be a chamber that has such a fine draft that it helps make the pipe so ALMOST foolproof that you reach for it when you know you don't want a failure.

Some of us grow attached to pipes and smoke some more than others...probably most of us. I'd say those qualify on the basis of their popularity.

I have found a couple of Italian made briar pipes that seem to encourage the burning of their contents without much attention to detail. Their ease is noticeable to me.

 

newbroom

Lifer
Jul 11, 2014
6,087
6,394
Florida
more about the exclusion of corn cobs...these are universally lauded by anyone who gives them a try...

I just received both a Country Gentleman, and A Cobbit Shire...and w/o smoking either, I can see that I'm in for some nice rewarding smokes....that Shire looks like a pipe I could own for 90 % of my rotation....say, about 20 or 25 of those would work out just fine....and I haven't even smoked it yet!

 

warren

Lifer
Sep 13, 2013
11,699
16,207
Foothills of the Chugach Range, AK
I smoke a pipe for a couple of reasons; nicotine and, when relaxing as a comfortable, but not distracting, adjunct. I have three or four blends that I enjoy and only infrequently do I try something different. I am no longer in the hunt for either the perfect pipe or the perfect blend. I have them with respect to what makes me happy.
My pipes are carefully chosen to be comfortable to my hand, eye and mouth. I am not in competition with others with regards to pipes or blends. I own what makes me comfortable and have only limited interest in others' pipes or in what they smoke.
I guess my point is; for me the pipe is not a be-all or end-all. The pipe merely accompanies me through life's ups and downs, delivering the nicotine and a bit of routine to my sometimes hectic life. The pipe is not my "raison d'etre."
I have one pipe, which my late wife gave me nearly 40 years age. That pipe would cause me anguish if I lost or damaged it though it meets none of my criteria for a "good" pipe. It doesn't get smoked often and is always within my vision in my office. If I was too quit smoking pipes, this one pipe I would keep.

 
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