I just won this Golden Duke on eBay for $20 delivered.
The key I think to buying these is to make sure the stems aren’t all chewed and it must be an Adjustomatic model.
A middle sixties Golden Duke will have spectacular grain hidden under the quick varnish job they used at Sparta.
The ones you want are those given to cigarette smokers after the 1964 Surgeon General’s Report and tossed in a drawer after a few smokes.
By the inflation calculator these would only be about $50 today, and you still can buy a Golden Duke new for around that. It will have nice grain, but not Pre War Kaywoodie Flame Grain level like all the smooth Golden Duke Adjustomatics had.
But where in the world did Grabow source maybe a million super fancy flame grain briar pieces a year?
And the Adjustomatic stem was the flat out best way to joint a pipe ever devised. They look like a push stem, but can be user adjusted because of a clutch in the tenon.
The key I think to buying these is to make sure the stems aren’t all chewed and it must be an Adjustomatic model.
A middle sixties Golden Duke will have spectacular grain hidden under the quick varnish job they used at Sparta.
The ones you want are those given to cigarette smokers after the 1964 Surgeon General’s Report and tossed in a drawer after a few smokes.
By the inflation calculator these would only be about $50 today, and you still can buy a Golden Duke new for around that. It will have nice grain, but not Pre War Kaywoodie Flame Grain level like all the smooth Golden Duke Adjustomatics had.
But where in the world did Grabow source maybe a million super fancy flame grain briar pieces a year?
And the Adjustomatic stem was the flat out best way to joint a pipe ever devised. They look like a push stem, but can be user adjusted because of a clutch in the tenon.
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