$9 Lee Star Grades

[Briar Lee]

Back in my teenaged years about fifty years ago, a man named Hap Rima had a service station in Humansville across from a car wash where us kids frequented.

On Saturdays about 9 o’clock in the evening, Hap would close down his station and yell at us boys:

I’m gonna get drunk tonight if it costs two dollars!

We all loved Hap, and the joke was even in 1975 you couldn’t work up much of a drunk on two dollars. That might be ten dollars, in modern money.

Today, any smokable Lee Star Grade is worth ten dollars. The majority cost ten dollars new in 40s and 50s money.

But if you watch eBay long enough, you’ll find a bargain.

Here’s three pipes, an old Yellow Bole and two Lee Star Grades, I just bought for $27, which is $9 each, delivered.







The middle Lee is a seven pointed inlaid star Three Star with unusually flashy straight grain.

The bottom Lee is about as big as you’ll find a Lee pipe, in standard shapes.

And the top Yellow Bole is ancient, before they became a competitor to Brylon Medicos.

Such a deal, even if they did cost $9 each!

 

[coming to_falling too]

I saw these on my search for a Lee last night. Glad they're going to a good home. I'm interested to see how they clean up.

 

[reloader]

Those will clean up nicely. Can't wait to see them. Congrats on the acquisition.

 

[Briar Lee]

I saw these on my search for a Lee last night. Glad they're going to a good home. I'm interested to see how they clean up.

Thanks for letting me get those, as the only bidder.

You can tell quite a bit about a smoker by how he left his pipes.

Note all three pipes have bare briar in the bottom, and it’s still brown. The owner had to clean them regularly or they’d be black at the bottom.

He also used some kind of straight side reamer, or else was a master with a pocket knife. He kept a cake “the thickness of a dime” on his pipes. He didn’t chew the bits, and see how he was careful not to chatter the bowl tops?

After his pipe smoking days ended those pipes went into a box in a basement. The greeenish cast is a sort of mold. It comes off with steel wool and Everclear.

And he preferred a pipe larger than most in style during his time.

The brownish residue near the joint of stem and shank of the largest Pot shaped Lee might well be sign of a worn out joint. If so, I’ll shim it back up tight.

I’ll ream out his carefully preserved cake to the bare briar.

My guess is those are clean as a whistle inside, just the way he put them up the last time.