To smoke or not to....unsmoked 1971 36ft 4a

I would smoke it just like the rest of my pipes. It is just a pipe, and it was made for that purpose. Just my 2 cents.

Gorgeous pipe.
The obvious solution is to buy another Dunhill and use that to satisfy your curiosity about how a Dunhill smokes.

Load it, light it and love it. It's a great pipe but at the end of the day it's just a pipe. Enjoy.

If you take care of a pipe, smoke it correctly, keep it clean and maintained, rotate with other pipes, etc., there is no reason it wont last you a good long time.

Load it, light it and love it. It's a great pipe but at the end of the day it's just a pipe. Enjoy.

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+11

Things designed to bring pleasure when used should be used

If it was a large expense and your wife is using its value as a collectible to justify it, I say buy another Dunny and keep it as a collectible. Mkelaw, Pulver, and Briar Blues all sell affordable Dunnies to sate your appetite.

Your wife is correct as to it's value as a collectible, esp. with the box, sock, and papers. Finding a nice pre-smoked estate Dunhill wouldn't be that hard, and if your wife is giving you the green light on that......

I would say smoke it, but your wife is giving approval to buy a smoked estate so you can keep this one pristine. You would be crazy to not hunt down another Duhill. Finding another birth year Dunhill should not be hard for you.

Since you have the Full Meal Deal happening with all the packaging and paperwork, wanting to keep everything "shop new" is understandable.
While smoking the pipe WILL decrease its value as a collectable, the bad news is that the 70's was a time of significant revision (a.k.a. cost cutting) at the Dunhill shop and generally speaking things weren't changed for the better. Because those problems were later addressed (primarily finish and stem work) and overall quality recovered a bit in the 80's, the 70's is regarded today as Dunhill's historical low point by collectors. How much pipes from that period bring when sold is affected accordingly.
That said, with Dunhill now out of the game (for all practical purposes), and prime specimens of the company's Golden Era production getting harder to find every year, looking past the date and paying more attention to the pipe itself will be a growing trend, I expect. And your Liverpool is definitely a nice piece. The stem and shank both have a little of the "70's bloat" going on, and the color is distinctly "early 70's pink" instead of the collector-preferred mahogany/maroon of earlier and later Bruyere production, but that's it. It's also an overall desirable shape. Nothing goofy. It's a classic.
In short, the pipe won't make you rich anytime soon as an investment, so you might as well smoke it. On the other hand, NOT smoking it gives you a perfect excuse to get another pipe AND enjoy this one as a display piece. I call it a toss-up --- you win either way. :D

Is a pipe really a pipe when unsmoked?

Buy another, then smoke them both. Tell the wife you got confused...Oh well! :D

The concept of buying the pipe in the first place was to smoke a Dunhill birth year pipe. The fact that selling it later might buy an antique or go toward a trip isn't really relevant. It's good that your wife appreciates the special aspects of this pipe, but she also needs to understand your pipes are to smoke. Buying a second pipe of the same kind just seems misguided, to me. So here's a compromise. Let her know that you will smoke the pipe, but on your next anniversary, because it is so special, and she is so special. That will honor her, you, and this special pipe, if you can both buy into that in a sincere way. It's not especially rational, but it strikes a kind of emotional balance.

Send it to me, 1971 is my birth year as well and I'd relish the opportunity to smoke it.

Isn't it just wood until you smoke it?