Sorry about that. I suppose you know that storks and cabbages have little involvement in how babies are made...
$6500.00 Chonowitsch
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I see posts of upper end and cobs freely on here all the time. Sometimes in the same thread. Cobs and high ends share the same shelf in my closet.
Resentment is a universal simian trait.
I have never seen the point. If you want what they want, achieve it. If you cannot, you did not need it.
People also forget how much we benefit from having rich people to subsidize an industry like pipe carving.
It is interesting that the Danes seem to excel at tapping into that higher end artisan market. There are the occasional top end artisans from every country, but we tend to see more of the Danes in the top end market.
Likely, but hardly assured. I've yet to see any real mention of someone who's made money "investing" in pipes... Sure, some collections have sold for far more than the collector paid over the 30 years he collected. But too often such prices for his estate pipes simply go to his estate...
The dealers will make some money, as they should. The buyers? Not likely since they will be either selling the pipe for wholesale, or splitting the amount with a dealer if it's a consignment situation. Collectibles, by and large, make pretty crappy investments. Just enjoy them.
Danish pipes are beautiful. But so are pipes made here, in the US, and in other parts of the world. I also don't see any innate superiority to the beauty of grain from any one country. Everyone produces equally nice pipes.
Maybe some do so much less efficiently and want to be rewarded for that. "Señor Olaf spends a minimum of 1400 hours on each pipe, meticulously sanding it against his beard stubble until it assumes the shape his spirit guide has revealed to him."
Danish pipes are beautiful. But so are pipes made here, in the US, and in other parts of the world. I also don't see any innate superiority to the beauty of grain from any one country. Everyone produces equally nice pipes.
Maybe some do so much less efficiently and want to be rewarded for that. "Señor Olaf spends a minimum of 1400 hours on each pipe, meticulously sanding it against his beard stubble until it assumes the shape his spirit guide has revealed to him."
I really enjoy reading this thread - a lively discussion on wealth and value-worth of things.
To begin - this piece of 700g / 1.5lb wood was sold for more than $ 600K:
And what people bought that for? To burn it - the real function of these agarwood.
But on the other hand, I can say "land in Palo Alto or Atherton CA does not worth money" - a few hundred years back then when there was nothing developed and of course, when there was no market.
To judge the values of things with theology, one should not attach a price tag on anything; but to judge the values of things with basic economics, it's all about supply and demand - and not about how good or how better something looks or performs. Let's look at this Canadian-Chinese collaboration "HS Studio" pipes: do they look 10 or 20 times worse than the Danish / European Artisans? They look pretty decent in my eyes, with selected briar, and occasionally they may have work that out-performs the lower-tier work of the established Artisans, indeed. However, can they sell with such a price tag? No, definitely. The estate and Artisan market for "HS Studio" pipes is not there.
Of course, there can be bubbles in markets everywhere. Will a half-million or 1M Euro apartment (yes, just an apartment) in major cities in the world costs the same after 60 years, or 90 years? How about Bitcoin? What we can be quite sure is that there is an active Artisan pipe market, e.g. for the work of Nordh and Bang. Perhaps for the self-indulging people or for investors. And if the market is supported quite well by buyers for a long period of time, we technically cannot say that there is a bubble.
And as @Sable mentioned, rich people, especially those who are good at and focus on making money, are quite often very frugal,
e.g. Warren Buffett:
WARREN BUFFETT’S Daily routine video
To begin - this piece of 700g / 1.5lb wood was sold for more than $ 600K:
And what people bought that for? To burn it - the real function of these agarwood.
But on the other hand, I can say "land in Palo Alto or Atherton CA does not worth money" - a few hundred years back then when there was nothing developed and of course, when there was no market.
To judge the values of things with theology, one should not attach a price tag on anything; but to judge the values of things with basic economics, it's all about supply and demand - and not about how good or how better something looks or performs. Let's look at this Canadian-Chinese collaboration "HS Studio" pipes: do they look 10 or 20 times worse than the Danish / European Artisans? They look pretty decent in my eyes, with selected briar, and occasionally they may have work that out-performs the lower-tier work of the established Artisans, indeed. However, can they sell with such a price tag? No, definitely. The estate and Artisan market for "HS Studio" pipes is not there.
Of course, there can be bubbles in markets everywhere. Will a half-million or 1M Euro apartment (yes, just an apartment) in major cities in the world costs the same after 60 years, or 90 years? How about Bitcoin? What we can be quite sure is that there is an active Artisan pipe market, e.g. for the work of Nordh and Bang. Perhaps for the self-indulging people or for investors. And if the market is supported quite well by buyers for a long period of time, we technically cannot say that there is a bubble.
And as @Sable mentioned, rich people, especially those who are good at and focus on making money, are quite often very frugal,
e.g. Warren Buffett:
WARREN BUFFETT’S Daily routine video
True. High-end collectibles would not be for investment purposes. They're for people who already have all of those bases covered many times over, as well as owning every luxury they can possibly desire and still are swimming in cash that they don't know what to do with.
Personally, I can't imagine that, but they are out there. For them, it makes sense to look at the spectrum of high end collectibles if it tickles their fancy. And I can imagine certain highly valued artisan pipes could be considered as being at the lower end of that spectrum...or perhaps they're just luxury goods...or both.
And menuhin, note that the wood was only worth $600K because it was infected with mold. Agarwood that isn't infected with mold is odorless.
Now, slatedplug and olkofri, our two resident commissars of the directorate of price and wage, are a little behind on their report for permissible prices on things like houses and plumbers wages (c.f., my comment supra). But when they get that done, I will be fascinated to hear their ruling on the acceptable price for smelly infected wood.
[Hmm. This is just NOT going to very efficient, is it, this centralized authority on price and value. If only there were some naturally-occurring system for setting the price of things like chunks of moldy, smelly wood. But, oh well. We know that such a system renders our fellow men "ridiculous" and "obscene" and "sick," so we simply have to wait for our betters to tell us how we may behave.]
Now, slatedplug and olkofri, our two resident commissars of the directorate of price and wage, are a little behind on their report for permissible prices on things like houses and plumbers wages (c.f., my comment supra). But when they get that done, I will be fascinated to hear their ruling on the acceptable price for smelly infected wood.
[Hmm. This is just NOT going to very efficient, is it, this centralized authority on price and value. If only there were some naturally-occurring system for setting the price of things like chunks of moldy, smelly wood. But, oh well. We know that such a system renders our fellow men "ridiculous" and "obscene" and "sick," so we simply have to wait for our betters to tell us how we may behave.]
@tslex
Right, Agarwood is basically resin filled scars of trees from two specific tree genres, similar to fatwood of pine trees, but the resin secretion is caused by injury, insect invasion or sometimes mold.
Because of the rising market due to the Chinese joining the Arabs to like these, and these trees being driven close to extinction, their price is now sometimes more expensive than gold by gram.
Right, Agarwood is basically resin filled scars of trees from two specific tree genres, similar to fatwood of pine trees, but the resin secretion is caused by injury, insect invasion or sometimes mold.
Because of the rising market due to the Chinese joining the Arabs to like these, and these trees being driven close to extinction, their price is now sometimes more expensive than gold by gram.
Much of the rage at the wealthy is a misdirected impulse to say that we are making the wrong people wealthy. Dot-com guys? Eminem? Whoever wrote the new Star Wars? A few exceptions like that make people distrust wealth, when if you look at the list of people financing your local ballet, opera, symphony, library, museum, etc. it is usually wealthy individuals (to be fair, who else has the money).
Many years ago artists, musicians, etc were "adopted" by the rich (royalty), their expenses covered by such. They wrote/painted/created under this largess. Then the "common" rich did the same, many of the moneyed types were raised with the notion that it was duty of the wealthy to underwrite the arts and provide support for the poor. In our day, record labels provided this support for writers and singers, etc of music. The rich still continued to nurture painters and writers, as did publishers and art dealers. Record labels, hoping to profit, signed singers and such to exclusive contracts. Sport did/does the same, risking money, hoping for a return.
There are some here who obviously strive to support specific carvers, commissioning pipes or favoring one or two carvers through purchases. A couple of members simply cannot get their brain around the idea that people with discretionary moneys, spend those coins in a manner which boggles their wee, closed minds. The simple desire to support a specific carver, to encourage his work, cannot be reconciled within the mind of these types. It simply does not compute.
Those that instinctively detest the wealthy do so from jealousy and envy alone. Those people are unwilling to take the necessary risks and, as "metal" writes, act impulsively, without knowledge or thought.
There are rich and poor who deserve/merit disdain. There are rich/poor who deserve/merit accolades from society.
There are some here who obviously strive to support specific carvers, commissioning pipes or favoring one or two carvers through purchases. A couple of members simply cannot get their brain around the idea that people with discretionary moneys, spend those coins in a manner which boggles their wee, closed minds. The simple desire to support a specific carver, to encourage his work, cannot be reconciled within the mind of these types. It simply does not compute.
Those that instinctively detest the wealthy do so from jealousy and envy alone. Those people are unwilling to take the necessary risks and, as "metal" writes, act impulsively, without knowledge or thought.
There are rich and poor who deserve/merit disdain. There are rich/poor who deserve/merit accolades from society.
If that pipe was 650.00 would I buy it, hell yeah. 6500.00 to some is like my 650.00, to others it is 65.00 to others it is .65. I believe whoever bought it did so as an investment. When Jess dies are his pipes going into the Bo Nordh category, maybe so. Pipes can be a very good investment as is tobacco.
I am sure there are people here who think I am stupid for paying 375-450 on my new Rad Davis pipes. Do I think anyone is stupid for spending 1000.00 on a new JT Cooke when they could spend half for a Rad that smokes as well or better, no I don't. My good buddy Peck has a bunch of Cooke's pipes and he loves them. I say more power to anyone who can afford what they want.
Now I do think spending 3700.00 for a freaking nose warmer is stupid, especially as ugly as this one.
https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipes/new/tao/moreinfo.cfm?product_id=259256
I am sure there are people here who think I am stupid for paying 375-450 on my new Rad Davis pipes. Do I think anyone is stupid for spending 1000.00 on a new JT Cooke when they could spend half for a Rad that smokes as well or better, no I don't. My good buddy Peck has a bunch of Cooke's pipes and he loves them. I say more power to anyone who can afford what they want.
Now I do think spending 3700.00 for a freaking nose warmer is stupid, especially as ugly as this one.
https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipes/new/tao/moreinfo.cfm?product_id=259256
I've written out several long comments and deleted them. I think that it's just easiest to say, putting people down, whether it is the wealthy, WalMart shoppers, race, gender, or other beliefs is stupid and based on evil.
Nothing makes me want to belittle a human being more than seeing them belittle another human being, ha ha. :
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Nothing makes me want to belittle a human being more than seeing them belittle another human being, ha ha. :
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