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  1. Briar Lee

    The Dying Swan

    In a lot of ways Swam is like the manufacturers of buggy whips. It’s a steadily declining market. You can still buy a buggy whip today, but there are only high dollar good ones for sale, and $10 cheapies. I’d never heard of a Swan match here in the USA. But I thought Swan had shrunk the...
  2. Briar Lee

    The Dying Swan

    A review of strike anywhere matches, and how to make your own. https://www.greenbelly.co/pages/strike-anywhere-matches The real killer of the strike anywhere matches are disposable lighters and shipping costs. Each one of these 22 cent lighters will start as many fires as $20 worth of...
  3. Briar Lee

    The Dying Swan

    You’re right, I had it backwards! That will increase costs, add to shipping. Hmmm. What’s their competing matches size?
  4. Briar Lee

    The Dying Swan

    I looked up why Swan matches quit the strike anywhere match. The EU had further regulated the chemical for the tip of the match. Being good capitalists the cheapest solution was to eliminate the chemical. As to changing the box and logo the reason they did was to sell more matches, at higher...
  5. Briar Lee

    Zippo Fluid

    Thanks for that comparison. The OP could be right our lighter fluid doesn’t burn as long, and if so it’s because Zippo is trying to lawyer proof their product, to make it less hazardous. My Zippo fluid causes cancer in the State of California, your children ought not swallow it, but it’s...
  6. Briar Lee

    Watch Out or Watch on? Pt 2.

    All true. The Orient watches I favor are designed, produced, cased, timed and regulated by Orient using an all Orient in house movement that’s made entirely in Japan. If I look close my Orients read Japan Mvt. If they could say Made in Japan they would say it. The dials might be...
  7. Briar Lee

    Zippo Fluid

    I never mean to mislead anyone, and I’m sorry if I do. But there’s variance in grades of naphtha, and a lot of antique tractors used to run on “white gas”. And when I was a child the gas stations had a kerosene pump for oil lamps, and sometimes a white gas pump for tractors as well. In 1969...
  8. Briar Lee

    Deep Cleaning Cob Pipes

    The dowel stem of a MM pipe is huge compared with the hole drilled in the shank of a briar pipe. It would be difficult to gunk one closed. The stems are replaceable. They can be cleaned in a basin of soapy water, if you like. The product was designed to be a working man’s pipe for so long as...
  9. Briar Lee

    Watch Out or Watch on? Pt 2.

    Today my $18 pocket watch arrived from China, postpaid. It’s a beautful bauble that has a skeletonized and decorated Standard Chinese movement. There’s a Hunter case and chain with it, too. I can see and count 17 jewels, there’s a regulator, and I can see the balance spin six beats a...
  10. Briar Lee

    Four Aces Red by Republic

    I’ve not tried Four Aces Gold, but it sits on the same racks beside a dozen other Gold plastic pillow sack tobaccos. I’ve tried about four other Golds, and favor Buoy Gold but they all are excellent. Gold seems to stand for all natural Virginia flue cured, no flavorings or casings, a mellow...
  11. Briar Lee

    Four Aces Red by Republic

    Whatever is the burley raised in Western Kentucky where they raise dark burley. Most of it goes to chew and twist.
  12. Briar Lee

    Watch Out or Watch on? Pt 2.

    Here’s a good article on “in house” movements. https://www.watchfinder.com/articles/feature-the-truth-about-in-house-movements My father died in 1971 and he had one good watch, a 1958 Hamilton Thin-O-Matic, gold filled. It cost a hundred dollars new. He only wore it on Sunday mornings and...
  13. Briar Lee

    Zippo Fluid

    I’m ignorant too about all this. But a gallon of water is eight pounds, and a gallon of gasoline is 6.2. Zippp fuel grade, light naphtha seems to average 5.5 pounds, but heavier grades are as heavy as gas.
  14. Briar Lee

    Zippo Fluid

    Naphtha is priced by the ton. Some sources say 5.5 pounds per gallon others say 6. They want more gasoline. Then they want more diesel. Then more jet fuel. What’s left over some is naphtha, and all manner of other products. And the refineries are different and the crude oil varies a lot too.
  15. Briar Lee

    Zippo Fluid

    Different distillates, in the refinery process. The ocean tankers run on raw crude, straight from the well. To use crude oil it has to be cracked in a big refinery, into different levels of distillates. Benzene (gasoline) is what they want the most of, out of a barrel. In recent years that’s...
  16. Briar Lee

    Ruminations on Error of Smoking Quality Theory

    I’m no good at percentages but no more than half the A size and less than ten per cent of the larger sizes show any sign of use beyond a few smokes, often a half a smoke, in my huge stash of Marxmans. This is common with Lees, as well. As many as 90% of American soldiers smoked the...
  17. Briar Lee

    Ruminations on Error of Smoking Quality Theory

    Just a push. You made me scratch my Marxman! But it buffs out easy too. Algerian briar was not highly regarded, until it was nearly impossible to get. A book written just before the war by a famous pipe maker Ram repeated official colonial French statistics Algeria shipped 48 million...
  18. Briar Lee

    Ruminations on Error of Smoking Quality Theory

    I found the 1947 Kaywoodie catalog page for their $15 to $25 pipes, then new. Carter Hall is a mild smoke in a new pipe, is why I like to break one in using it. Marx pipes aren’t heavy, by my standards. Marx even advertised his Morocco as the lightest pipe available (it was deeply cross...
  19. Briar Lee

    Ruminations on Error of Smoking Quality Theory

    During the war, about half the briar pipes were made of “domestic briar” which was Manzanita from California or Mountain Laurel from North Carolina (which is why Grabow moved there in 1943). Cigarettes and cigars and pipes were not rationed, but were price controlled (so were wages). No...
  20. Briar Lee

    Ruminations on Error of Smoking Quality Theory

    One thing Marx’s pipes will do, is not “hold” cake against a sharp knife. The cake just crumbled and 100% shook out, leaving a completely fresh, brand new looking bore. I’m using Carter Hall to get a film of carbon back. Four Aces or Five Brothers would turn me green in this one.:) Some of...
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