J.M. Boswell, Stradivari of the Pipe World
-
Kevin Godbee - Sep 3, 2015
- 10 min read
Fred Brown
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men—that is genius—Ralph Waldo Emmerson, "Self-Reliance" Essay, Boston, 1841
J.M. Boswell is the living embodiment of self-reliance, a belief that the ultimate source of truth lies within himself.
Lofty? Perhaps, but J.M. Boswell is a professional pipe maker of rare talent. He makes a perfect pipe because it is true to his code: it has to be flawless, or he will not let it leave his shop in Chambersburg, Pa.
You have no doubt heard of Boswell pipes. He has become, in many estimations, a kind of guru at the top of the mountain, dispensing vast knowledge about the mystique of pipe smoking.
If you haven’t heard, then get on your computer and go to the Boswell web page or on Instagram.
J.M. is one of America’s premiere pipe makers, although he will not tell you that. In fact, about all J.M. will say is, "I’m just like anyone else.
"I like what I do. It is a business. That is how I do it. You don’t have a business without people giving you their hard-earned money."
2nd Floor Smoking Parlor
Take it from the Pipe Pundit. Simply stated, his pipes smoke! The holes are drilled for easy draw. The button is opened up to assist in effortless puffing. Boswell pipes are a pleasure, period.
The history behind J.M. Boswell and his shop in Chambersburg is a classic American story, coming from nothing to the status of master craftsman, an artist of the first rank. J.M. Boswell is the Antonio Stradivari of pipe makers.
The signs on his pipe store in Chambersburg explain most of the history. There are two of them, one over the store entrance and the other hanging on a post: Over the entry, it says: "J.M. Boswell’s Pipes & Tobacco." The sign in front of the shop says: "Boswell’s Pipes and Cigars."
As you walk into store sitting area on left, large walk in Humidor on Right
J.M. has been making pipes "in the hands on procedure in old world tradition" since 1975.
We pick up the story with J.M. a 10-year-old whose family had recently moved from Elba, Ala., where he was born, to Carlisle, Pa., where his father worked as a master welder.
J.M. says his father could do anything with his hands, and when he was 10 years old, he also worked with his dad and discovered he, too, had a gift with his hands.
"From the time I was 10, I was never broke again," is how J.M. puts it. In other words, he realized he could always make a living with his hands.
Boswell Briar wood delivery
After moving to Carlisle, J.M. got a job delivering newspapers. Later, he began working with Richard Johnson, who owned a small pipe-shop operation in Carlisle. Johnson had worked for the legendary Weber Pipe Co. of Jersey City, N.J., as had his younger brother, Kenneth, father of J.M.’s wife, Gail. His wife’s aunt had also worked for Weber, one of the giant production pipe makers of the 1950s-1980s.
At first, J.M. says, he didn’t have much interest in pipes. Johnson was not making many pipes at the time, but within a couple of weeks, J.M. had caught on, and caught the pipe-making bug.
"If you show me something, I can do it, pretty much with anything."
Thus, the gestation of one of America’s finest pipe makers began.
Boswells J.M. Gail Julie and Dan
While passing through Chambersburg on his way to start a new job, J.M. saw a store on the town’s main street that had a sign in the window: "Will remodel to suit."
"I told Gail that’s where we were going to open our pipe shop."
The year was 1980. The store was 10 feet wide and 28 feet deep, J.M. says.
A year later, he had to move to a store three times the size of the first one. In 1997, he moved into his present location, 586 Lincoln Way East in historic Chambersburg.
Dan buffing his Weathered Stone Pipe
Everything he owned, he says, went into that business in the building that had once served as a pharmacy.
From there, he made pipes and restored pipes. His pipes sailed out of the Chambersburg shop to retail B&Ms around the nation under different names.
J.M. attended pipe shows. He sold his pipes wherever he could. He worked in his shop during the day, and carved pipes into the wee hours of the morning.
After beginning his shop in 1980, he was sending repaired pipes to more than 400 shops just two years later.
By 1990, J.M. was distributing his hand-made pipes to stores across the nation. His wife, Gail, handled the packaging and mailing.
Gail, Titus, & J.M.
"We made a lot of pipes for private labels," J.M. says.
After a few years of this, J.M. says he had $500,000 invested in his business and was busy paying off the balance. He no longer had time to teach others the Boswell method of pipe design.
He either built or redesigned most of the machinery with which he worked. Many aspiring pipe makers showed up at his door, or phoned him, to learn the Boswell wizardry.
Then with his business flourishing, it became too time consuming, since many of those who arrived didn’t know how to use the necessary equipment to create a pipe.
"I don’t have the time (now) to do it. It is very difficult to teach the system we use.
"It is all feel and touch," he says.
As business increased, he brought in his son, Danny, Dan’s wife, Julie, daughter Rachel, who sells estate pipes on eBay, and life partner, Gail, his wife of 39 years.
J.M. Boswell and some of his pipe collections
Gail shoots the photos and keeps up the web site, which was one of the first of the pipe shops to hit the Internet.
Dan has created his own method of working on pipes, which he calls the "weathered stone" look. The process is "done with old- style tools," to rusticate the pipe. It is like etching glass with a chisel.
Boswells is also known for its jumbo pipes, some so large they could past for tree stumps. Well, maybe not that large, but one style is known as the "grizzly." Yeah, it’s big. It’s bad.
Also in the Boswell lineup are shot shell pipes, which have a shell as the band around the stem; and J.M.’s famous nose-warmers, just right for a jacket pocket.
J.M. Cutting a Pipe
Julie handles phone orders while J.M. and Dan work on pipes and tobacco blending. Make no mistake: despite what you may have heard or read, J.M. Boswell creates his own blends. There is no relabeling a manufactured blend in the Boswell world.
Julie Handles the Phone Orders
J.M. takes blending seriously. For instance, his famously popular Northwoods blend took him over three years to perfect before he even allowed it in his shop.
"I started with zero," he says in looking back over his career. "It was hard work and dedication. You have to keep your eyes on the big prize. If it was right, I did it. If it was honest, I did it. If it was shady, I stayed out of it. That just wasn’t the right way. There is only one way and that’s the right way."
J.M.’s philosophy about pipes and pipe making is fairly simple:
The first requirement is that a Boswell pipe has got to "smoke good, look good and be priced so people can afford to buy them."
His pipes sell to the man-on-the-street, the wealthy billionaires who want their company logo on the pipes, and once even to a monk.
And with that in mind, J.M. says he puts in 18 hours a day, seven days a week and has never had a vacation since starting his business four decades ago.
"You are not going to make it if you don’t do that," he says.
And then there is the J.M. approach to honesty. It goes like this:
"You got to do it right. I’ve never cheated anybody. I’ve never made a bill I didn’t pay. I sleep good at night, because I don’t have to worry if I’ve done somebody wrong."
Second Floor has a Tobacciana Museum – Two large rooms packed with antiques
About his briar, J.M. says just like everyone else making pipes today: most of the good wood comes from the Mediterranean.
However, one other little detail separates J.M. from the pack. The briar merchants he deals with go back years and years.
With many of his contacts, he is into second and third generation with a particular family of briar dealers.
He won’t take briar that will require fills, he says, and his merchants know that.
"We have no fills, no fix up time," he says. "We buy the very best wood."
Some of that wood is over 35 years old, and J.M. says if he lives to be 90-years-old, "I won’t have to buy another stick of wood. And at 58 years, he has a lot of good wood.
J.M. has never visited the briar dealers in those Mediterranean lands. He never sees the wood before it arrives.
"They know what I want," he says. "I just wire them the money." He never advances money before the blocks arrive, either.
The pipe-making process is all Boswellian philosophy, just like everything else in the shop.
The hand-tooling part is also simple: band saw, drill press, sander. He drills all the holes in all the pipes.
"All the air holes are (drilled) free hand," he says.
J.M. built the machines to do that job. "I don’t use any jigs for that."
He designed chucks to drill the tenon hole to ensure it is flush. Other than that, he says the rest is all free hand drilling.
And, his machines are made to cut on at 7 a.m. and turn off 12-13 hours later.
Last year, J.M. and his shop turned 4,800 pipes.
As for the Boswell tobacco blends, he has been at that for 40 years as well. He continues to mix his own blends, buying from well-known manufacturing names and then applying his own recipes.
Only organic food flavorings are used in the old fashioned-way of putting the tobacco on cookie sheets to add the flavoring.
"I have a soft palate, so everything we blend, we blend it to be soft."
He has heard all of the naysaying that his blends are simply re-labels from major manufacturers. Not so, says J.M.
"We hear all kinds of stuff. Heard it forever. I don’t read the press or look at the pictures of pipes.
"All it does is create negativity and make you feel harsh about other people.
"Our tobaccos are our tobaccos and that is what we do.
"We have 28 blends and that is it. It takes forever to have a new blend."
As for sales, Boswell pipes and tobaccos are sold worldwide.
"Even to some countries I never heard of," he says.
Just one of the many reasons for Boswell’s success is another one of his basic philosophies:
"I love my store and love my customers. It is most gratifying. I meet the richest guy or the fellow who pays me $5 a week to put a pipe on layaway."
"I’m not better than anyone else. I’m just making sure my family is taken care of and the bills are paid," J.M. says.
"We don’t make pipes we like. We make pipes you want. We make ’em to sell, and that is the bottom line."
Transparency: Fred Brown owns several Boswell pipes and smokes many of the Boswell tobacco blends.
|
|
Written by Kevin Godbee
17 Responses
Recent Posts
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 638. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Fae “The Sassy Pipe Lady” Simmons. Fae is the owner of Tobacco Treasures, which sells new, vintage, & estate pipes, and smoking accessories on Etsy. She has been in business since 2017, and has been surrounded by pipes and tobacco most of her life. Her father and his brother smoked pipes, and so does Fae. Her husband is also a retired tobacconist that worked all over the industry from coast to coast for several different companies in the industry. She has a great story of how her business got started with a great inventory of unsmoked vintage pipes. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
Ok, so it’s that time of year, as we all know. Family feasts, houses, yards, and big trees festooned with lights and dangling ornaments, just high enough to keep the cats from reaching a paw into the greenery. It’s also the time of year when your pipe-smoking-significant other makes vast hints about a new pipe. That’s to be expected since he or she was a good boy or girl during the year. Yes, ladies smoke pipes, too. Oh, you want an example? Okay, try Actress Greta Garbo, Millicent Fenwick, Mary Frith, and my late grandmother (who died when she was 93) dipped snuff and smoked a cob occasionally. So now that we have settled that the gentler side of life will puff a pipe too, let’s move on to the upcoming biggest holiday of all. Of course, that huge event is brought to us by the hefty fellow in a red suit, puffing his pipe all the way in a sled filled with presents, being led by a reindeer with a red nose. Or some such. That’s Santa Claus, of course. Becoming a bit more serious, Christmas is such a wonderful time for families and friends. It’s also quite special for pipe puffers. For many of us, this brings up a nostalgic look back to our pipe-smoking or cigar-smoking friends who have died during the current year. A great journalist pal whom I often joined in a local brick-and-mortar pipe and cigar shop. I puffed my pipe, and occasional cigar, as he enjoyed a cigar. He died in October and will be missed. On the happier side of things, Christmas is also a time when mind workers of the world renew their collections with fresh additions. Pundit included. A French passion has overtaken Pundit, from reading more Albert Camus, a heavy cigarette smoker, as were many French intellectuals of a certain time. Instead of cigarettes many of us prefer the more relaxed enjoyment of pipes for that “calm and objective judgment” in the comings and goings of the world. This brings me to French pipes. While visiting France once in the long ago, I happened by a “Tabac” shop in Paris, Tabac Des Vosges. I purchased a beauty of a Chacom bent. I also later bought a Ropp made from ancient briar. To learn more about the dawn of briar pipes and beginnings, take a peek at a well-done piece by Davin Hylton in Pipe Line on April 12, 2023, on Saint-Claude, France, the birthplace of briar. Also in the long back when, on a cold Christmas afternoon, Pundit wandered into an Atlanta bricks and mortar pipe shop to look around. There, resting in an enclosed glass counter was an exquisite Comoy. An older gent, smoking a beautiful bent, asked me if I wanted to look at that pipe. It had a $100 price tag. A college student working for a grocery store chain to help with college tuition at the time, Pundit didn’t have one hundred cents, let alone a C note! I declined and found a $5 basket pipe. A Christmas tradition had just begun. Since that early time, Pundit has made it a holiday ritual to either reward himself, or a special friend, with pipe or tobacco. A Claudio Cavicchi would be nice. Just sayin.’ And now for a couple of December-born Pipe Smokers of the Past: Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born on Dec. 30, 1865, and died on Jan. 18, 1936. I always prefer to believe the best of everybody; it saves so much trouble—Rudyard Kipling. Martin Van Buren, born Dec. 5, 1782, and died July 24, 1862, U.S. President, 1837-1841 As to the presidency, the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it—Martin Van Buren. And one more note to recall a deceased World War II veteran who loved William Somerset Maugham, the author. Maugham, a pipe smoker, was born in Paris, France, on Jan. 25, 1874, and died on Dec. 16, 1965. One cool afternoon as the veteran and I talked while sitting in his backyard patio, he looked off into the distance as if studying something. Nothing in particular. Just looking. He turned to me and said if I wanted to learn about life, “read Somerset Maugham.” I did. It wasn’t until late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say, ‘I don’t know’ –W. Somerset Maugham And now a Parting Shot: Any day with an old friend with pipes and tobacco is a good day.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 637. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Nate King. Most people know of Nate as an excellent pipe artisan. He also has an honorary Master of Pipes degree from the Chicagoland Pipe Collectors Club, and is a member of the prestigious Confrérie des Maitres Pipiers de Saint-Claude. To be inducted into the Confrérie, this past May Nate travelled to Saint-Claude, France with master tobacco blender G.L. Pease, who was also inducted. It was quite a time in France, and at the ceremony. We’ll hear all about those adventures on the show. At the top of the show we’ll continue the virtual tour of Brian’s pipe collection with six of his Satou Dublin-shape pipes.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 636. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Barry Kane. Barry started smoking a pipe in 1961 when he was 14-years old. Back then it seemed like everybody smoked, and you could buy pipes and tobacco just about anywhere. Barry is a true old-school pipe smoker, sticking to just one blend. See if you can guess which one before listening. At the top of the show Brian will give his take on Scandinavian Tobacco Group’s purchase of Mac Baren and Sutliff Tobacco and their announcement that they will be shut down.
There’s a pipe in my collection that I cannot bring myself to smoke, though I’ve had it for more years than I care to recall. It’s old, or shall I say, well experienced; that experience, that oldness came to it long before it was in my possession. The pipe is an old Comoy’s Grand Slam from the 1940s. The shape (#93), a slightly canted, stack billiard (sometimes referred to as a Belgian) is right up my alley, and it’s a beautiful example of it. It came to me with some wear and tear; nothing unusual for an old pipe, but more the signs of one that has been well loved, smoked a lot, treated as a favorite tool, cherished, in a sense, by frequent use. It’s the pipe equivalent of a vintage car that’s been driven a lot, enjoyed fully and maintained adequately, rather than one kept in a spotless garage, dusted and detailed weekly, brought out only for leisurely Sunday drives, or to be ogled behind the ropes at the next Concours d’Elegance. When it arrived, those uncounted years ago, it wanted a little restoration. Nothing dramatic needed to be done to it, but the stem was oxidized, the finish a little dingy. The cake was even and fairly thin, and the airway was relatively clean, both signs that its previous owner cared for it, but the bowl’s surface was a little drab and dull. It took little effort to reveal its beauty, to show the lovely contrasted stain and interesting grain beneath the old wax. I often think I should do before and after photos of pipes that I work on, but those thoughts always come after the work’s been done. This one would have been a great illustration of how years of handling that can sometimes make a pipe more beautiful, can other times make it just look grungy. Once I’d cleaned up the externals, it was time to address the inside bits. I approach this a little bassackwards, I realize. It would be more sensible to take care of the inside before addressing the outside, but it’s how I roll. If an old pipe isn’t pretty to look at, it’s unlikely that I’ll care much about it, and cleaning is usually the hardest part, or at least the most boring part of any restoration for me. Alcohol and pipe cleaners. Lots of pipe cleaners. That’s why I leave it for last. Sometimes, I’ll even give a pipe a test smoke before a deep cleaning, just for a point of reference. I gave it a sniff to get an idea of what I was up against, and it stopped me cold. There in that bowl was an aroma that I had not smelled in decades. My head was instantly filled with memories of being in the back room of a fabled Berkeley tobacconist’s shop where I stumbled upon a few jars of long discontinued blends. One of them, a blend called Forty and Eight, had the most engaging and unusual scent of any tobacco I’d stuck my schnoz into. It was sweet, but not in a candy store way. There were none of the usual vanilla, cherry, berry or anise notes of typical aromatics, nothing that could be compared to aftershave or deodorant soap, but something almost musky, a little earthy, something exotic. The shop’s owner couldn’t tell me what was in it, how, or where it had been produced. The old blend had been retired before he’d bought the place. The printed catalogue gave no clues, either, other than being overprinted with the word “DISCONTINUED” in bold, rubber-stamp type. (And, I don’t recall it as being “highly aromatic” as the description indicates.) There was still quite a bit in the jar. Being, at that point, an intrepid explorer of all kinds of tobaccos, whether I thought I’d like them or not, I had to give it a try. It was burly based, but also comprised a good measure of virginia leaf, and maybe some other varieties; I didn’t have enough experience at the time to really pick it apart. But, that aroma was unlike anything I’d experienced before or since. It was something now completely lost to time. Until it wasn’t. Memories are powerful things, and there is no sense more tightly bound to memory than our sense of smell. One whiff was all it took to carry me back in time, conjuring a vivid recollection of something long submerged in the inky depths of a subconscious mind. Look, I know as well as anyone that pipes are meant to be smoked, and that many feel it almost sacrilegious to have a pipe and not set it to its intended task. In this case, I simply can’t. I won’t. Ever. Rationally, I am fairly certain this pipe would probably be a great smoke. It was too well loved by its previous caretaker to be anything less than that. My choice not to smoke it is an emotional one, not something rational. Of the thousands of pipes that have passed through my hands over the years, this is the only one to create such a singular and vivid, almost Proustian recollection of temps perdu, of lost time. It revivified a long dormant memory that is mine, and mine alone, and that’s enough. I keep it in a drawer with other old English pipes. In some ways, it’s nothing special, just a nice old pipe. I don’t lavish it with any particular care that arguably befits the hidden treasure that it holds. It’s not in a special box, or displayed preciously in a glass cabinet. Every once in a while, I take it out, point my nose bowlwards, and every time, those memories return just as powerfully as they did the first time. I have no idea how long it’s been since its last owner smoked it, but in the years I’ve had it, there seems to have been very little degradation of the aroma, and that’s […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 635. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with James Ravenwood. James is the boutique tobacco blender of Ravenwood Blends. His blending started out as a fun hobby, and he now has professionally packaged commercially available products with some great tin art. Part of his interest in pipe smoking goes back to fond memories of a retired Navy Veteran that lived on his street while he was growing up that would sit in his driveway smoking a pipe all day. Later, in 2011 he began smoking pipes and soon after started experimenting with mixing different tobaccos. His other hobby, that he has been doing for 30 years, is photography. He takes wonderful photos of outdoor spaces, and still life pictures of pipes and tobacco. You can see them on his Instagram @thebriarfellowship. At the top of the show we’ll have an Ask the Pipemaker segment with renowned pipe artisan Jeff Gracik.
Great stuff, Fred. Enjoyed this very much.
Great article, the Boswells are great people to deal with.
Thanks, pitchfork. J.M. and his entire family are just a real pleasure to work with. They take their work seriously and it shows.
Excellent article! My first pipe was a Boswell in 1999. It stills smokes like a champ. It’s also refreshing to see someone like Mr Boswell who holds true to his values and integrity. I hope I can get to PA sometime and visit the shop. That would be a real treat!
I have two of his pipes, both are great and purchased directly from their store website. I am also a big fan of their Northwoods. I’d love to actually visit the shop and meet J.M. someday. I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with Dan on the phone a couple of times and he seemed like a good guy.
Great article. I’m hoping ot take a field trip up to Boswells some time soon.
Fascinating article on a true legend! Thanks for sharing!
Great piece, Boswell’s is one the best B&M’s anywhere.
Good article!
Great article. It introduced me to a number of things about J.M. and his buying sources I was not aware of.
I do not have one of his pipes yet, although I have been planning to order one for some time. His “shotshell” pipes are my favorite and are a great example of a sportsman’s pipe.
I have ordered and smoked a number of pounds of Boswell aromatics and have more cellared, and can testify that they are up there with the best on the market, and his prices are more than fair. You really cannot go wrong with any of them.
Complements will waft behind behind you as thick as your pipe smoke!
Great article, I enjoyed it immensely. In the wake of all the news stories of corporate greed and manipulation it’s refreshing to know “old school” values still exist. It restores your faith in humanity. I’m putting Boswell’s on my list of places to visit.
Love Boswell pipes and tobacco…I’m a Boswell groupie!!
I have been smoking JM’s pipes for 20 years. His pipes are great and JM and his family are terrific people. It is always a treat to get to their shop and spend some time there. I never come out without a new pipe. His pipes just keep getting better and better.
I have been smoking JM’s pipes since 2007. While living in Carlisle, PA and working at the Army War College, I had the pleasure of meeting J.M. and his son Dan. I would enjoy going to his shop and browsing his pipe display cases. Dan would come out to greet you and roll out a cart with new pipes and show you what was new. Their custom tobacco blends are excellent as well; you just cant beat the experience of being there in person. They were excellent host as well, welcoming all to come in relax in the chairs and even have a smoke with you. The upstairs smoke room is a nice touch as well. I wish I still lived in PA just to be able to go to his shop and hang out! Like billm67 said: His pipes just keep getting better and better!
Great Article about a down home American Small Business.
I have 3 Boswells, 4 of their aromatics and 3 or so of their English blends. Every one, every combo smokes great.
Shopped here MANY times. Have smoked in the front room. Great environment! Fantastic owner’s and great staff! Looking forward to the opening of their new store. It’s gonna be ALOT closer to me!!!