Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 402
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Kevin Godbee - May 26, 2020
- 1 min read
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 402! Our featured interview tonight is with Steve “PipeStud” Fallon. Steve has one of the most popular consignment-auction businesses for estate pipes and vintage tobaccos that he’s been running since 2006. If you know Steve, you know he’s a big fan of the original Dunhill blend, Royal Yacht. This show is our third in a series of “Seven Questions for Seven Experts”. Over the course of seven weeks, we will ask seven prominent pipe collectors the same seven pipe related questions, and see how their answers compare. At the top of the show, for our pipe parts segment, we will have “Ask the Pipe Maker” with Jeff Gracik. Sit back, relax with your pipe, and enjoy The Pipes Magazine Radio Show!
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The Pipes Magazine Radio Show features interviews with pipe makers, tobacco blenders, pipe and tobacco aficionados, collectors, and more. Episodes air every Tuesday.
Our show is sponsored by SmokingPipes.com, Cornell & Diehl, Missouri Meerschaum, Savinelli Pipes and Tobaccos. Please give them some consideration when making your next pipe or tobacco purchase.
We hope you enjoy our 1-hour show produced just for you—the pipe smoker and collector.
Steve Fallon Interview
Written by Kevin Godbee
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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 639. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Per Billhäll. Per is the owner of Scandinavian Pipes, which is an online retailer of high grade pipes. He started smoking pipes in the 1960s. His first high grade pipe was made by Hans “Former” Nielsen, who is one of the living legends from Denmark. That led to Per becoming a huge pipe and tobacco collector, and show attendee where he became well known. Along with pipe book author Jan Andersson, they started The Pipe Club of Sweden in 1991. Then in 1999, Per started “Scan Pipes”. He is now one of the pipe retailing legends from Sweden. At the top of the show Brian will talk about holiday blends, and other special pipe tobacco blends.
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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.
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I am really enjoying these “7 Questions” shows. And, Steve was a terrific “contestant.”
Besides being an honest and accommodating businessman, he knows what he likes and isn’t afraid to say so. Steve is also the nicest of guys.
Louis. “Oh, Yeah.”
As always, thanks for a fun and informative show.
Dino
Another great show in the can. I’m looking forward to the rest of this series. Always interesting to hear others opinion whether I agree with them or not. I finally finished the back shows and what a difference from the first 25 shows to the current shows. I hope you keep going another 400 shows.
Trouttimes
I’m smoking Mac Baren Classic Dark Twist while listening to this weeks episode of The Pipes Magazine Radio Show. This was another great installment of the ‘Seven Questions’ series, Brian, which I am enjoying very much. Steve Fallon is easy to listen to, and has a very humble wealth of knowledge. I’m not a fan of ‘Royal Yuck’, but hey, to each their own! Your Pipe Parts question to Jeff Gracik, was one that I can chime in on, based on personal experience. I’ve been a pipe maker since 2002, and I prefer to use alcohol based dyes. The majority of the dyes I use are leather dyes, because I like the array of available colors they offer, they are what I am acoustomed to working with, and in keeping with tradition they are what my mentor, the late Horace DeJarnet (DeJarnet Pipes), used. Different colored alcohol dyes mix together on the pipe itself, for example two base coats of yellow followed by a coat of red will yield a beautiful amber color etc. I was taught to light the pipe on fire after applying the dye to burn off the alcohol, which gives two distinct advantages. Firstly, it dries the dye almost immediately, and secondly the heat drives the dye deeper into the briar than air drying would have. I buff the pipe between each coat with White Diamond compound, to achieve the desired shade of color, eg: more buffing equals a lighter shade. A trained eye and experience reveals when enough buffing is enough. This technique yields some stunning results in getting the grain to pop, as well as allowing each pipe to be beautifully unique in color. That’s my two cents, loved the show, see you on the next one!
This was just another great show! Steve Fallon who has never met a stranger is simply a great guest. Steve has a great site on which we can still sell or buy fine tobaccos. And he uses eBay to sell pipes. He does it all. The part where he talked about selling his favorite Ashton for $425 was a real hoot. I always new Steve could be bought and now I know how much it will cost me. I’ve always lusted for a Brad Pohlmann pipe. He once made a set of pipes that were identical except one was a straight grain and the other was blasted and were being sold together in a case. Some guy came by and complimented Brad on the straight grain while I spoke about the sandblasted one. Brad just beamed when I made my remark about the sandblast pipe. I know whoever got that set was going to be happy.
Ol’ Satchmo can just sing a song. Anybody else singing “It’s A Wonderful World” is just wasting his breath.