Why Don't You Still Have That Great Pipe?

sablebrush52 · Aug 1, 2014

"I used to have (fill in the blank) a great pipe, really wonderful. One of my favorites." Blah, blah, blah, blah, fluffy.
I've read variations on that statement a number of times here, the wonderful pipe that you used to have. If it was so wonderful, why don't you still have it?

docwatson · Aug 1, 2014

I had a JT Cooke sandblasted Poker that was an amazing smoke with the most incredible blast I have ever seen. I sold it to Bob Noble, one of the biggest Cooke pipe collectors in the USA. And I have regretted it to this day. If Bob wasn't such a good friend I'd still be smoking it. Sometimes pipes are like stocks. Buy low and sell high. : puffy

:

puffy · Aug 1, 2014

I had a beautiful Aldo Velani.It was really well balanced,and smoked great.It was just about my favorite pipe.I let a friend talk me out of it...As far as I know he doesn't smoke it.I keep hoping that he will return it.I've about given up hope that he's going to though.

cigrmaster · Aug 2, 2014

Why don't I still have those pipes, because I am an idiot. I got out of my pipes for about 2-3 years and did not think I would be coming back to them so I sold a few I wish I had back. One was a Castello KK Fiammata shape 49 that was a great smoker and simply gorgeous. Then I sold a couple of Formers I wish I had back, other than those 3, I have no regrets.

lonestar · Aug 2, 2014

I sacrificed my entire collection to buy pipe making tools

On the plus side, I'm slowly building the collection again with my own pipes.

I still think of several pipes I sold and miss them!

shaintiques · Aug 2, 2014

Had a neat little Kaywoodie back when I started, bought in Montevallo, AL. Smoked good but the stem was oxidized. I sold it before I knew how to clean that stuff off. It had a neat slant to the top of the bowl like a funnel.
The other loves of my life got stolen and I will miss my Pete till my dying day.

captainsousie · Aug 2, 2014

Ryan, If you're building a rotation of your own pipes then you have a truly great rotation indeed. I can understand missing some specific pipes that you had but there's a reason both of the pipes I have from you made it into my overseas rotation. They made it over Comoy's, Barling's, Tim West, Mark Tinsky, and many more like them.
I guess I should actually answer the original post after that little side-note. There are only 2 pipes I regret selling but I was too new to the collecting to know any better. One was a Kaywoodie that I sold because I was feeling snobbish. That taught me a good lesson and now I couldn't care less whether my pipe stem has a dot, a clover, a spade or a C as long as it smokes well and feels right.

ebklodt · Aug 2, 2014

I sold a tonni Nielsen pipe (and all my other high grades) to fund my pipe making materials and tools. But the Nielsen was truly magic with my favorite tobacco GL Pease Cumberland. I still look for that pipe from time to time on the second hand market.

mso489 · Aug 2, 2014

I've hung onto most of my early pipes, ruthlessly as I'd say. The several I've traded away, I considered carefully

and would trade again. The only pipe I regret was a beautiful spare no-name "Made in London" straight

billiard that had developed a crack in the shank. I sent it to a buddy who quit smoking Luckies decades ago

but wanted a few pipes to adorn his bachelor pad. Today, I would send that pipe off to a pipe repairman and

have another fifteen years of smoking out of it. I sent my friend several culls, so he'd still have had his pipes

for show.

mattia76 · Aug 2, 2014

I found an Unsmoked Savinelli 320 KS Punto Oro S (which I guess stood for Straight Grain) on eBay in 2010 that was my ultimate pipe. Beautiful, light, Virgin stain. No flaws. I had the bowl coating removed and broke it in using nothing buy Anniversary Kake and Trout Stream. It smelled like heaven. The 320 is one of my favorite Sav shapes. A great chubby author.
At some point I got too high-brow and turned my nose up at Savinelli for a while, but the real reason I sold it was that I was smoking more and more on my commute to and from work and the 320 is no clenched by any stretch of the imagination. I figured I could get triple what I paid for it, and I was right.
But I would buy it back in a second.

lochinvar · Aug 2, 2014

Lost or stolen. Sometimes one resurfaces, recently I've found a few pipes and a lot of tins lost during the divorce move. The one that I still remember I lost in 1998. It was a basket bulldog with a deep etched design, but it was light, Algerian briar and smoked Gatlinburley and anything with Latakia like a heavyweight champ. Then one day it jut wasn't in my pipe bag. Le sigh.

warren · Aug 2, 2014

I only maintain a couple of dozen plus pipes at any one time. All are grand smokers or they wouldn't be in the rack. Loss of a valued companion is usually due to mistreatment or misplacing in the woods. I have relocated a lost pipe now and then when tiding up the work bench. But, the loss is usually due to mistreatment. I've driven over them with the tractor, dropped one down the septic, lost 'em on the river, etc.

irish · Aug 2, 2014

Fortunately I still own them . I started collecting twenty five years ago and up until 6 months ago I never once had sold a pipe. I have now sold over a hundred just clearing out pipes I didn't want or smoke to buy ones I do . Thank Goodness I have not sold a single pipe that I love and will not . I will however continue to sell ones I don't want or smoke to buy those pipes you speak of!!! Ones that I will always cherish . Probably should not have posted this as it is not what you where asking . Sorry to ramble .

mso489 · Aug 2, 2014

I find that some pipes that fade from rotation seem to get rediscovered. Time sometimes revises my opinion

much to their favor. That makes it harder to cull pipes, knowing that in two or three years, they might look

quite different to me. Also, low or mid-level pipes sometimes gain a lot of ground when they are no longer

available, and when I look and see that they have gone up fifty percent or more in price, since I'm a rigorous

shopper for discounts and sales. I wouldn't buy some of the Petersons I smoke and enjoy today. Some of my

pipes you just couldn't buy anywhere, on ebay or wherever.

grouchydog · Aug 2, 2014

In 1984 my high school friends bought me a stone-gorgeous Ben Wade freehand sitter. I quit piping for lots of years but kept that pipe with me through my scandal of a college "career" and umpteen subsequent moves. When I got back into piping a year or so ago, I couldn't find it anywhere. I fear that I pitched it in a fairly recent household-crap-purge before the piping restart. Makes me sick to think about it - it was a wonderful pipe and a great memento.

iamn8 · Sep 18, 2014

Why indeed.

metalheadycigarguy · Sep 19, 2014

I had a Danish style Wild Honey London Made pipe that was a great estate ebay find. I gave it to a friend that was down on his luck as a Christmas present. He really liked the pipe a lot, so I thought it would be a nice gift for him. He was very appreciative and has enjoyed it thoroughly.

misterlowercase · Sep 19, 2014

I once had a pretty nice Castello 93, I loved the egg shape and it was a perfect jawhanger.

It smoked very well, in fact it smoked so good that it almost smoked itself --- the problem was the way it tasted, which was like hashish! :evil: Somebody had clearly smoked a good bit of hash in it, it took forever in the first place to fully remove the thick gummy resin in the stem and the mortise, and even after several salt baths for the bowl it retained the distinct flavor. I smoked it maybe 20 times and then gave up on it. This was pretty early in my pipe life and I was pretty clueless about proper restoration techniques, I could have probably did a much better job, or probably "smoke it out" until the hippy hash ghost was gone, but I didn't have the patience to continue smoking tainted bowls from it. I had gotten the pipe from a seller in France for a song, when I sold it, it went back to a guy in Italy!
I've learned alot about cleaning pipes since then.

Why Don't You Still Have That Great Pipe?

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