A+ Experience: The Original Tinder Box in Santa Monica, CA

[claypipesarchaeologist]

I walked in the store with the intention of just grabbing some tobacco to take on our trip to Yosemite. Smoking around the camp fire in the Sierras with a belly full of my foil-dinner-carne asada, how could I pass that up?
After describing my latikia love to the man at the counter, gosh I wish I could remember his name (second from the left in the blue plaid), he pulls out a bag of tobacco from his pocket and tells me to try some. It was his own personal blend and it was wonderful! Based on my love of his blend, he was able to pick me out something almost just right for me, made perfect by a handful of blending latikia that he threw in for free.
I went here about a month ago. I'm still pretty new to pipes and have never actually been around someone who smokes pipes. So, when he saw me light up, he said, "honey, let me teach you how to smoke." Ha! Oh man, I had no idea how much I was butchering my tobacco and briar with bad technique. Well, he sure set me straight
You know you've found a gem of a shop when you walk in, intending to be there for a couple of minutes, and end up talking and smoking away more than an hour.

 

[plateauguy]

The Tacoma Tinderbox is a great place too! Unfortunately, you can't smoke within 25 feet of any business in Washington (including the employees). It kind of takes something away . . .
My wife actually will stop in if she's in the area and buy tobacco for me. Last trip was Chartwell. When she first started it was Mango Tango, so she's progressing.

 

[sablebrush52]

That's the one and only original. I've been the occasional patron for years and years. Whenever I have an opportunity to be on the Westside, I pay a visit.

 

[mso489]

Whoa, it looks like the real ticket. Great informal portrait of the local pipe smokers. Their Wilshire Blend,

which is 1Q I believe, was named after the major artery Wilshire Boulevard. That place launched a new

trend of pipe smoking nationally, and still sustains it, somewhat, through its franchises. Great photo.

Don't tell me you took it with your phone. (I know, phones can do this now.)

 

[claypipesarchaeologist]

Ha! No. I have a "dumb phone." I yanked the photo off google-images.

 

[ssjones]

Those guys have "trouble" written all over them!

 

[mso489]

That's how habitues of a pipe shop should look, of course. I think I'd agree with

more of their yarns than I would believe, just to be companionable.

 

[numbersix]

Thanks for sharing - great story!

 

[hippiebrian]

I'm going to take a ride out there on Saturday. Looking forward to going to a shop where pipes aren't an afterthought to cigars.

 

[misterlowercase]

Awesome story, thanks for sharing - sounds like a really great place.
People say that Lee Van Cleef's favorite blend was Tinder Box Philosopher...

I found this neat story a while back about a chance meeting he had with someone at an Oxnard mall...

"I had the very fine experience of meeting Lee once when I was young, I was sitting in a mall in Oxnard California called the Esplanade. I was about 14 at the time. I was enjoying a box of caramel popcorn when this gentleman asked if he could sit. I said sure. He then asked if it would be ok if he smoked his pipe. That's when I got a really good look at him and said "you look like Angel Eyes from the cowboy movies" He replied "I had better,My name is Lee Van Cleef. I am Angel Eyes" I introduced myself to him and we started to chat about Alot of things. I asked him what was he doing at the mall ,He said he liked to buy his tobacco good at the Tinder Box smoke shop..."

 

[goinslow]

Thanks for the run down...I will defenitely visit this shop soon!

 

[docwatson]

Thanks for the photo, it's been many years since I last stopped there. On my last trip I sold Ed Kolpin a Kaywoodie carved head pipe. Ed was a Kaywoodie collector.