Huge Stone Pipe??

Pete, just got mine in a couple weeks ago, check out my thread link...
http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/huge-stone-aka-hukes-pipe-well-see-how-it-turns-out

Actually, it smokes fantastic, all the way down to the bottom of the bowl. It is a small pipe, but with proper sipping, lasts easily an hour. I have no complaints with it as of yet, and for $60 it was a worthwile investment, imo. Hope you are enjoying yours as well!

I just bought on of these and I have to say I'm impressed.

The Hugestone studio is based in Shanghai. The owner of the factory was a former pipe and cigar wholesaler/retailer. After some troubles related to cigar smuggling he could no longer run the business so he hired a group of former woodworkers and established the studio.
The first brand they made was Silver Castle. It was advocated as a brand started by two Canadian guys Sam and Colin and they learned pipe making from Todd M Johnson. At that time they had very little experience in pipe making thus the quality was very poor and a pretty large portion was returned. Then they stared some other brands like Age Golden, Neptune and the current Caesar and Hugestone. It seems their technique has improved a lot over late years. But as for the inglorious history of those guys many Chinese retailers and pipe smokers would stay away from those stuff. And they even feel reluctant to touch anything related to Todd...
I am not saying Hugestone pipes have poor quality. It's quite probable they have developed good skills in pipe making. Either I am not saying the Neptune pipes sold at smokingpipes are still made in that studio. But a simple fact is that this studio made a lot of pipe stamped with that name a couple of years ago. Many people in Chinese pipe community were pretty aware of that. Back in 2013 and before the launch in smokingpipes Neptune pipes could be found everywhere on taboo.com (the Chinese eBay).
P.S. some of you might have seen faux pipes stamped as Castello, Becker and Former on eBay or somewhere in the last two years .......

HS Studio makes good pipes and Annabelle is the seller you bought it from. I have around 10 coming in from her for sale on my website on the eastern side of the world
Chris :puffpipe:

I have four Silver Castle bamboos, and I love them. They are made as well as all of the rest of my bamboos. I called the eBay vendor after a few exchanges of messages on ebay, and I got that it was a couple of Canadians and that stummels were being made in China, but I was led to assume that they were finished in Canada. I had no idea that Todd Johnson was involved. That seems like a name that she would have dropped to make me feel more confident in buying these.
But, aren't Neptunes made in the Briarworks factory in Tennessee? I wouldn't doubt it if we've been lied to about these pipes, but...
And, yeh, it cracks me up that they put those cheap SilverCastles and Huge Stones on ebay along with a thousand dollar Castello or Former or two.

We have members here that get very wound up when these pipes are mentioned, because they believe without a doubt that they are also making many of the fakes on the market. Which doesn't bother me at all. If they can do a good job making a fake, then these other pipes must be good... and, all of mine have turned out to be great little burners. And, at least the Silvercastles and HS pipes are legit.
Also, I took my first SilverCastle pipe to Skip at The Briary as soon as I got it. He rolled his eyes and waved it off as a cheap Chinese piece of crap, despite me telling him that it smoked great. "Sure, sure, whatever," he said. Then a couple of years later after he did the Chicago show he shows me a rack of them that he has picked up, and he tried to sell me one, having totally forgotten that I was the one who brought him the first one that he ever saw. Ha ha. But, he sold every damned one of those pipes in less than a week. And, everyone that I know that picked one up loves the heck out of it.

A friend of mine worked for the HS studio. He said Todd did came to China to teach them. However, he was not satisfied with any piece of work they produced.
It's great to know that some Chinese studio have become capable of making nice pipes.

@halfy HS Studio despite a rocky past are now making good pipes. Of course some of their pipe shapes follow popular artisan shapes but they are affordable and they smoke great. I have bought a lot of these pipes for my ex and myself and they smoke great at a great price. Also there are some very talented artisan pipe makers in China. Sam Cui, Pinz Zhan to name a few.
Cheers,

Chris :puffpipe: