Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 603
-
Kevin Godbee - Apr 2, 2024
- 1 min read
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 603. Our featured interview tonight is with Rick Newcombe. Rick is a well-known author of several pipe books, and he is currently working on his third book. He is a prominent collector of Danish pipes, and vintage tobaccos. He has traveled the world visiting pipe makers, and learning their different techniques. He is also the founder and chairman of Creators Syndicate, which currently represents more than 200 writers and artists. At the top of the show we’ll have a Pipe Smoking 101 segment discussing best pipe shapes and sizes that are best suited to certain types of tobacco.
Brian Levine
Episode 603. Rick Newcombe Interview.
Use our player above – or – Choose one of the Apps below.
 |
 |
 |
 |
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, Peterson Pipes and TinBids. 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.
Written by Kevin Godbee
More Pipes and Tobaccos Articles
6 Responses
Recent Posts
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 662. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about their experiences and Jon David’s purchases at the Chicago pipe show. There is also news on the Country Squire’s bulk tobacco / custom blends program that was impacted by the closure of Sutliff Tobacco Co. In our opening Pipe Parts segment we will get caught up on a mailbag backlog with four great questions from listeners.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 661. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Fernando Keops. Fernando is a renowned sleight-of-hand magician, particularly known for his work with cards and gambling effects. He is celebrated for his performances that blend magic, sleight of hand, and a poetic style. He is of course, also a pipe smoker and he attended the Las Vegas International Pipe Show in 2024. Already a full time magician, he started smoking a pipe when he was 22-years old. Another magician that he was working with that was a pipe smoker, and 82-years old at the time, bought him his first pipe. At the top of the show in our Pipe Parts segment, Brian will have a tobacco review of Cornell & Diehl’s Opening Night.
Bigger. Better. More Pipe. This year’s Chicago Pipe Show was a larger event with an expanded smoking tent and the addition of the special events section at the back of it, and the show boasted way more attendees than previous years. While we didn’t have the most interesting man of the year at the show this year, there was an actor sighting at our hotel of Brian O’Halloran (better known as Dante from Clerks). It is unknown if he came into the show itself or was just there at the hotel, and sadly, I didn’t find any pictures of him there, just the rumors. Stay tuned on that one. Tim Garrity (Chicago Pipe Club President) shared with me some numbers this year; there were over 950ish in attendance. For those of you playing the home game, they reported to me that in 2024, a little over 400 attended (after checking with Tim this was just the attendees not including vendors it was around 800 with everyone). That’s more than double for 2025. “We had an increase in carvers and tobacianna makers. A large international presence with vendors coming from China, Brazil, Italy, France, Denmark, the UK, Austria, Germany, Turkey, Cuba, Cyprus, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Canada, and a few others as well…. I really want to highlight two pieces that stick out to me. As mentioned before, the international showing. Our guests came from all around the world. While it rained outdoors, only friendship and fellowship reigned in our tent. Our community continues to bring me joy, for in divisive times, we are coming together. Pipes over politics, personalities, and persuasions,” said Tim. The line to enter stretched almost outside this year. Below are a handful of pictures to give you a general idea. Upon first entry into the ballroom, vendors and carvers were stacked in with more tables than in the past couple of years, as Tim discussed. To the newcomer, this can be a bit overwhelming because there are so many pipes, but do yourself a favor and do the “Brian Levine” advice and walk the whole floor looking before coming back to settle on some pipes. New Tobaccos Coming out from C&D and Per Georg Jensen I ran into Per Jensen this year at breakfast and ended up heading out to the smoking tent with him before the show opened, and we sampled several blends that he’s working on in collaboration with Jeremy Reeves (newly minted Doctor of Pipes) at C&D. Per: In a collaboration with C&D. One week ago I was playing ping-pong with Jeremy at the C&D factory. Two tobacco-interested people who came into talks and discussions and decided to collaborate. So I’m coming out with four blends under the name Legacy Collection, where I honor my father and his job. The first four will be with sailor motifs because he was onboard the royal yacht Dannebrog. Per: Every summer, the King and Queen travel around Denmark visiting the different cities. This was a tradition that goes back to the Vikings because at that time they didn’t have any facebook or Instagram so a lot of people didn’t know how the king looked. So they had to travel around to all the cities to show his face. He didn’t have a castle. This tradition is taken over by the present kings as well. Per: The crew onboard the yacht are selected from the regular navy, and conscripts are hand-picked and sent onboard the royal ship to work for the summer. Officers were always assigned to the ship, but every summer a different crew. The ship he started on was the paddle boat steamer, and then in 1932, a new ship was built, and that is the same ship we use today, almost a hundred years old. When are we going to see these blends come out? Per: If everything goes as we would like, it will be the beginning of July. I’ve got two blends ready, and I’m smoking the new ones now. They are: 100% Virginia (Red and Bright) Virginia Dark Fired Kentucky Burley Dominant Blend One more Virginia blend. (Red and Bright) For all of them, they are going to be so natural, that means a little bit casing, no top note (with the exception of the burley). The goal, Per says, is to have balance in the flavors and no tongue bite. Kings Watch is a 50/50 blend of red and bright virginias. Interesting note: Per said, each tobacco company calls variations of Virginia something different. MacBaren, for instance, would call it bright Virginia because it had a higher sugar content. The red Virginia has all the flavor, so the more red, the more intense the taste. When sampling this, the flavor profiles are citrus fruit, mellow cream, and a slight floral note. Tasting the Burley heavy blend, which is ready to go as well, is smooth, nutty, and cocoa-flavored. With that nougat taste, I’m reminded of a Toblerone candy bar, but don’t go assuming it’s full-on aromatic. It’s subtle. Another commented that it was like a truffle. The Burley forward blend does have a hint of Virginia in it as well, but just a hint. The Dark-Fired Kentucky and Virginia blend has that expected BBQ smell/note. The room note is more mellow. Per says they are still tweaking the two other blends, and they don’t have names for them yet, other than being under the Legacy Collection banner. Stay tuned! Battle of the Briar This year’s Battle of the Briar featured Ping Zhan, Silver Gray, and Nathan Davis as the carver competitors. Once again, our Master of Ceremonies was Steve “Pipestud” Fallon, with Jeff Gracik providing the play-by-play. Missouri Meerschaum was a sponsor this year and also did a live stream of the event; you can go back and watch here. I’ll expand a bit on that video with things you didn’t know, with a couple of comments from the carvers and Judges, so strap in. I chatted with Jeff […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 660. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Kevin Godbee. Kevin is the owner and founder of PipesMagazine.com, which launched in 2009 as a resource site for pipe smokers and pipe and tobacco collectors. The site has numerous articles from well-known pipe authorities as well as the largest and most active community discussion forums, and of course this podcast. This is an extended interview where Brian and Kevin will talk about the Chicago pipe shows from the past as well as the current show that just took place this past weekend.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 659. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Rick Newcombe. Rick is a well-known author of several pipe books, and he is a prominent collector of Danish pipes, and vintage tobaccos. We catch up with him and see what he’s looking forward to at the Chicago pipe show this coming weekend. Rick was in Chicago when the show was first conceived of, and provides quite an interesting early days look at the show. Later, he chats with us about alternative sources of nicotine. At the top of the show in our Pipe Parts segment, Brian relays a quite interesting and nostalgic history and background on small batch and/or limited edition tobaccos.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 658. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Bo Parker. Bo is the new co-host of the Pipe and Tamper Podcast, which is the second longest running pipe podcast after this one. Bo started as the co-host in January 2025, and he is also a member of the Heretics Pipe Club. He is a professional coffee roaster and has the best “first time I smoked a pipe story” ever. At the top of the show, we will have another edition of the virtual tour of Brian’s pipe collection with four more Smio Satou pipes.
Some very good points in your discussion of the effects on tobacco enjoyment with regard to pipe sizes, shapes, and preparation.
Rick is always a fascinating guest, and he didn’t disappoint tonight. His stories about friends, pipe shows, and the pipe communities of yesterday and today were both entertaining and enlightening.
Sammy Davis Jr. is another of my personal favorites. Thanks for choosing this tune.
Glad to hear that you’re enjoying all the critters in your new Florida location. (I’m talking about the wildlife not the domesticated bipeds.)
Thanks for another always entertaining show.
Dino
Pipe parts was kind of interesting. Lots of different shapes and sizes being discussed and their impact on the type of tobacco that could be smoked in them. Lots of advice here but I decided to keep my pipes resembling each other in shape and length. That way I forced the tobacco to conform to my tastes (limited as they are) rather than me conforming to them. This led to a lot of rejections of perfectly good tobaccos but made it lot easier on me.
A wonderful guest you had tonight in Rick Newcombe. Coincidentally I had been thinking about Rick Newcombe lately and Voila you had him on. An interesting story about Rick was when he and I were enjoying a chat at Chicago about 7-8 years ago. Suddenly out of the throng of people comes a cry of “Uncle Rick, Uncle Rick”. It was Nanna Ivarsson. And “Poof” he was gone. I couldn’t blame him either as Nanna was looking spectacular that night.
Sammy Davis has always been a great club singer but there was something wrong with the recording. The orchestra keep drowning out his voice. What I could hear of him was top-notch!! Good selection, bad recording.
Florida is wonderful this time of year. Wait until the year moves into June and July before making your mind up. As a kid 60-65 years ago, I loved Florida. But that was Key West not Orlando and I was ten old and not your age.
Well, I was surprised by this one. I respect Rick and have his books, much love to him. But….. what rock has he been living behind if he is only now discovering Micah ‘Yeti’ Cryder, and Nate ‘The’ King?! Has he really been out of the pipe world for an entire decade and only with his head in the Danish clouds of yesteryear? I’m all for respecting opinions and history, and am fully on board with that, but Nate and Micah are not upcoming new pipemakers. They are both well established American Pipe carvers with large bodies of work that truly show they are masters of the craft. I was taken aback by his comments. He’s going to really need to get back into the current state of the hobby for a 3rd book to have any bite with the ‘younger’ smokers.
See you all in Chicago!
This is to clickklick. Do we know each other? If not, please introduce yourself at the Chicago show. There is no question that my head is in “the Danish clouds of yesteryear.” Obviously I’m not the only one. I would love to find a Lars Ivarsson pipe on eBay at a price that is anything other than insane. I am very, very impressed by some of the pipe makers whose work I have only seen but not tried. Hence, my eagerness and excitement about the upcoming pipe show(s). Stay positive and this hobby will reward you endlessly, but don’t dismiss greatness because it occurred in “yesteryear.”
Hi Rick, we know each other. This is Adam Sheehan. I was not dismissing yesteryear, by any means. I collect things from yesteryear, with appreciation, like you. But I am still in disbelief, jaw on the floor, of your comments. We have seen many many pipemakers come and go in the past 2 decades (I can’t speak to before that as I wasn’t in the hobby), but there is a very established set of American pipemakers who have been established for a decade+ some almost 2 decades who are masters of their craft. I would consider none of them up and coming or younger, not in the sense of age but younger in the sense of their pipe making portfolio. I see you in Chicago every year, how have you missed these individuals? P.S. I can’t afford the Great Danes either but that tends to happen when books get written about them in such a well authored and high praise fashion
See you in a few days! Safe travels!
Thanks, Adam. You are absolutely right about Micah and Nate, and I’m sure others. Saying they were newer or younger was a careless description on my part, and an incorrect one. What I really meant was that they are NEW TO ME and I am really paying attention to them now. Of course I have seen Yeti pipes for a long time, and I remember being in the Bang workshop when the current P&T at the time had a cover photo of one of Nate’s car engine pipes, but it has only been recently that I have started studying his beautiful briar pipes. I met him for the first time at the last show I attended — in Las Vegas, as I recall. His pipes are gorgeous! I am very excited about the upcoming Chicago show and seeing you, Micah, Nate and all of my pipe friends.