I personate a Victorian farm bailiff, circa 1900, on an old-style working farm. I find that smoking Victorian pipes rounds out my credibility - and how else can I get a nicotine hit at work? (OK, snuff, but - meh, and cigarettes are right out). Sure, I could buy new clays, but for some reason they barely last a day or two before I break them, so an estate pipe, loved and clearly not abused by some repulsive old codger, is the perfect, affordable solution. Besides, pipes of a design you don't see sold new any more offer an interestingly, subtly different smoking experience. I'm not troubled by the imagined ghosts of predecessors using heritage toilet seats, either.