Thanks guys! I owe a lot of my choices to this site and its forums. I'll add some 1Q to the list for a September purchase, my girlfriend has asked I wait that long before acquiring anymore, and it's a fair request.
The Mississippi River is only down one bowl, it just had a HUGE bag sticker that blocks the tobacco out in that shot.
The bulldog a Brigham 3 dot, probably from the late 60s early 70s (based on the maker mark).
It was a flea market find (rescue?). I asked the seller if I could see it; it had a HUGE amount of rank smelling cake, a filter in place and a badly oxidized stem. Talked him down from $15 to $10 to $8 because there was still tobacco in the bottom of the bowl.
I got it home, reamed it, dropped the stem in oxiclean and used the micromesh pads to polish it up. I then ran booze soaked pipe cleaners through the bowl, shank and stem until they came out clean, and gently sanded and polished the rim to get the char off. All told, about 3 hours of elbow grease and I had a good pipe!
An interesting tidbit...if you want to salvage the stickers off your tins, boil a kettle of water and sit the kettle on your tin for about 5 minutes. It softens the glue so you can peel it off without tearing or leaving the sticker glue behind. Works for bag stickers too, just slap the bag on the side of the kettle for about 30 seconds and you're good to go.
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