I've been smoking a pipe for 53 yrs and so help me I can't remember what attracted me to the pipe. Maybe because it was a way to cut down on smoking cigarettes.
What Turned You on to Pipes?
- Thread starter highwaycobbery
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Good point. I never focused on the taste of a cigarette. Just wanted to suck in that smoke.
Because I wanted to affect an air of pretentious superiority and to pretend I was someone that I wasn't to fill that immense void in my soul.. Nah just kidding, I smoked ceegars every now and again and always loved the smell of pipe tobacco, so whilst in the tobacconist one day, bought a basket pipe and a baggie of 1Q.
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I grew up in NY in a religious family that didn’t drink or smoke. My mother was a war bride from Northern Ireland( she was in the women’s RAF; dad US Army). In order to know our grandparents and extended relatives, we spent two summers in the mid 1950’s in a village in Co Fermanagh.
Grandpa rode a motorbike, drank porter and whiskey, and smoked Condor in a Peterson.
I loved my grandpa. The rest is my dissolute history.
Grandpa rode a motorbike, drank porter and whiskey, and smoked Condor in a Peterson.
I loved my grandpa. The rest is my dissolute history.
Due to Tar and nicotine reduction on cigarettes and (Sic!)cigarette tobacco here in the EU these products declined so badly in terms of quality that no sain people would want to smoke them anymore
You know, I just always liked pipes. Even when I was little (7 or 8 years old), I would enjoy walking around with a pipe in my mouth. Started properly smoking pure dark fired from our tobacco barn out of a homemade cob when I was fifteen or so. Maybe it was my fascination with Sherlock Holmes that did it.
I’m in my second decade of pipe smoking now, and although I sometimes take a few months off for various reasons, I just enjoy it. I like pipes as objects, I like the history, I like that a small part of me feels transported back to Victorian London when I fire up a bowl in a piece of old Britwood.
I’m in my second decade of pipe smoking now, and although I sometimes take a few months off for various reasons, I just enjoy it. I like pipes as objects, I like the history, I like that a small part of me feels transported back to Victorian London when I fire up a bowl in a piece of old Britwood.
30 years ago I give up cigarettes so I to began to smoke a daily cigar as part of the “cure”.
Then someone gave me a pipe and I found pipes more enjoyable, economical, convenient and more rewarding on several levels, so I transitioned from cigars to pipes.
Then someone gave me a pipe and I found pipes more enjoyable, economical, convenient and more rewarding on several levels, so I transitioned from cigars to pipes.
Started in early college in 1991. Combo between a love for Samuel Clemens and JRR Tolkein. That and I found a cool Soren pipe at a thrift store for $20. Still have it, and I only smoke the OG 1-Q in it for old-time sakes.
What turned me on to pipes. I've said it before and will happily say it again. A variety of things including how cool the Richard Scary characters who smoked pipes where, how weird and mysterious they seemed when I'd catch a whiff of one of the neighbors Captain Black (which I still love the smell of and hate the taste of) at the same time cigars seemed just gross and cigarettes seemed confusing. When I'd see adults using tobacco it was just perplexing but with everything else then pipes it seemed mentally defective like a form of pica. Where as pipes seemed like this secret society of men who have interesting stories and know about nice things. They always looked like they were experiencing something. Then as a teenager I tried a cigarette and feel in love with tobacco so I tried everything and although pipes where a favorite there just wasn't enough time to smoke those as much as I wanted for them. Often on hikes or on weekends at friends houses that allowed for indoor smoking. Now I smoke a few bowls a day before and after work and on the porch with coffee on the weekends and mainly snus and snuff a little bit as an allergy treatment (it works actually) and I'll smoke a cigar a few times a year (generally rather have a pipe).
Ive dabbled with every from of tobacco at some point. I’ve always loved the aroma of the pipe tobacco in cigar/tobacco shops. I guess I thought I’d look cool, sophisticated, more mature and erudite. I felt I needed a new vice at the time.
I used to smoke mass market cigarettes. I quit cold turkey several years ago, and was fine for 3 years. Got stressed out from work eventually, but didn’t want to go back to smoking crappy cigarettes, so I took up vaping. That did the trick as a nicotine delivery mechanism, but vaping is to smoking what masturbation is to sex, so it didn’t quite get all the way there for me.
I dabbled a bit with rolling my own cigarettes, and while that was much better than factory cigarettes from an enjoyment and product quality standpoint, I still didn’t really want to be smoking cigarettes too often. Back in April, I saw a Big Ben Barbados 647 and fell in love with its weird shape. I bought it, and that’s what started me on pipe smoking. It just ticks ALL of the “make me happy” boxes in a way that no other form of nicotine consumption does.
I dabbled a bit with rolling my own cigarettes, and while that was much better than factory cigarettes from an enjoyment and product quality standpoint, I still didn’t really want to be smoking cigarettes too often. Back in April, I saw a Big Ben Barbados 647 and fell in love with its weird shape. I bought it, and that’s what started me on pipe smoking. It just ticks ALL of the “make me happy” boxes in a way that no other form of nicotine consumption does.
My dad, who passed away when I was 10, had smoked a pipe. I grew up reading The Chronicles of Narnia and I knew that C.S. Lewis smoked a pipe. I was a huge LOTR fan too. And then I got to college and it seemed like a collegiate thing to do. But the real kicker was the coeds. Me and my buddies would smoke our Nut-n-Honey in front of the dorm and the girls would sniff us out and come talk with us while we smoked. It didn't hurt that Tobacco World in Spokane, WA was downstairs in the office building where my mom's business was either.
My dad smoked only Granger from age 15, before he was my dad, until age 65. His dad smoked pipes, as did one of my uncles. In high school and college, not wanting to impersonate my dad or my professors, I didn't smoke a pipe, just the occasional Hav'a'Tampa small cigar. In my thirties, I decided to buy a pipe at Tinderbox, and I discovered that I had all of the pipe smoking moves imprinted in me like muscle memory.
My father-in-law died unexpectedly in 1986 and left a huge collection of Amphora Red pouches, meerschaum and briar. I think it was a total of about 75 pipes and 20 pouches. No one knew he had that many pipes or tobacco in his house. I was the only member of the family that smoked cigars so they handed me a box full of pipes and tobacco hoping I'd know what to do with them. I must say that I smoked a lot of Amphora as my first pipe tobacco.
Love these stories gents, I wonder if pipe smokers are born not made, maybe a old soul kind of thing. Always thought I should have been or would like to have been born in a more sophisticated age.
I wasn't sure if your mom was being straight or exaggerating when she said you were born with a pipe in hand.
I always kind of feel like piper smoker isn't just a statement on what a person does but that there is a certain personality type attached to it. A certain mixture of weirdio and anachronistic tendencies. It's not a well defined personality type that has a very broad spectrum of other personality traits, but there always seems to be some underlying similarities. I think part of it is it takes a certain amount of stubbornness and mild decadence required to really end up a pipe smoker. And seriously pipe smokers tend to be better story tellers then average folks. It's funny how different everyone is here yet at the same time there is an unusual level of being reminded of ones self by these odd ball characters. So maybe not born but forged out of a rare element for certain.
Bob, maybe we are all type b personality. I always see beginners asking about public pipe smoking and do you or do you not do it. This makes me feel like most pipe smokers are introverts, I know I am. When you hit 40 I think you just stop caring what people think. But back in the day it just seemed people “generally” were more polite and sophisticated. I say generally because we all know when it comes down to it people are people.
It looks as though "made" is correct. Most here seem to be emulating a relative, imitating a literary character or, got sucked in through Hollywood's products. The "Hobbit" smokers seem to have been driven as much by the movies as the books. I believe we are "followers" with regard to the pipe.
As I wrote earlier, "I simply wanted to get laid. I smoked cigarettes and chewed but, the professors were getting all the "tail." I had to get a pipe and sport jacket with elbow patches in order to compete. Too late I discovered the coeds were after father figures. An off campus bar would have been a cheaper way of gaining my goals.
I found the pipe to be an acceptable nicotine delivery system though and added it to my arsenal.