A Newbie Obsession in Collection/Restoration

[JeremyL]

Title shortened and edited for capitals.

The story begins when I went to check out the former house of a good friend. It's on 30 acres in Sheridan, Oregon. Her (long-ago) ex still lived there... until his passing a couple years ago. A horrible man, he lived alone and after his death the house sat empty. I happened to be nearby and snuck in to poke around. A total mess, but I did notice a pipe rack and several pipes. I snapped some photos to share with her and left. She recognized one or two of the pipes as one she had bought him back in the 70's. To this day I regret not snagging the pipes. Nobody would ever notice, and I am 99% sure they were tossed when the property was sold, the trees all clear-cut, and the property put back up for sale. A very sad story.

Fast forward a year and I find myself in Vienna, Austria for a couple months poking around the classifies. Within a few weeks I have collected a handful of old estate pipes. I was hooked! After 2mo I have collected ~50 pipes, most in decent shape but all needing some cleanup. And some nice stories to go along with some. And LOTS of time 'wasted' learning about the various pipes of yore, and restoration methods.

I'm back in the US of A now, and still trying to collect, but I have started my restorations. I don't have a buffer setup yet. I'm still moving around a bit after 9yrs of being a nomad, so I'll get one when I get settled and shine up any pipes I have cleaned up to this point.

Anyway, this will be an ongoing post where I shall share pix of the pipes I've collected as I get them cleaned up. I will occasionally puff away at one (I do not expect to become a habitual smoker, but as I did with cigars, I expect I'll enjoy once in a while. I grew up on a farm in Kentucky, where we grew tobacco. I was a 7yr old boy sitting on the back of the tractor planting the little plants with my siblings, so there will forever be a place in my soul for the stuff. I plan to keep the pipes I like the most, and sell the ones I am not particularly drawn to. My wife will eventually enforce some level of "enough pipes!".

I hope you enjoy!

 

[OzPiper]

Yes, please.
Love to see some pics of your haul.

 

[JeremyL]

The first cleanup is a Red Point "Old Briar" billiard. I chose it as one of the easiest of the cleanups since it was not in bad shape. The stem had some decent oxidation and a bit of chatter. I did my best to lift the chatter with candle/bic and it got most of the way. Sanding and micromesh did the rest. Obsidian oil should keep it pretty nice for a while. The bowl was pretty clean but I sanded it smooth with 320grit. It seems to have a factory coating on the inner walls. I did give it a light 320gr sanding/topping on the top to clean up some scratches. I didn't try to remove the stinger - just soaked in in alcohol to clean it up. Following Steve's methods of RebornPipes I cleaned the stummel with Murphys before going thru the series of micromesh, and then a treatment of Before & After restoration balm. This will be my "standard method" unless something dictates otherwise. I do have some Restoration Balm I plan to use on it, but I will wait until I get the buffer I think. It already has a nice finish just from the Balm.

I couldn't find much on Red Point, but the tales suggest its from Austria which makes sense as I bought it in Vienna, from a nice woman selling some of her grandfathers pipes.

 

[JeremyL]

I can post a couple pix showing the whole collection. I took them as I was collecting. I expect it will be fairly slow-going to get thru the cleanups. Maybe I'll pick up the pace as I get seasoned.

My first purchase - and perhaps one of the best with a Hardcastle and a Savinelli Punto Oro. I ended up going back to this guy - selling his brothers pipes after he passed - and getting a few more.

The rest you'll have to wait to hear about as they get restored . Gotta keep some suspense going. Of course feel free to ask for more pix/info of any specific pipes that catch your eye.

 

[rokerdepipe]

New life for the old pipes…good for you. This is great stuff!

 

[jpmcwjr]

Nice haul, and good resto.

Suggestion: When you do a restore, photo(s) of the before as well as after.

And avoid white backgrounds unless it's a Meer!

 

[sablebrush52]

You have a very nice collection of pipes, Kaywoodies, Bjarne, Stanwell, etc, and they look great! Enjoy!

 

[Sobrbiker]

Very cool!
Let me know if that Bari heads for the market

 

[JeremyL]

Very cool!
Let me know if that Bari heads for the market

Possibly at some point, but it's one of my fav's so I'll probably hang on to it for a while. I keep a spreadsheet of all my pipes and I'll put your name by it. It's stamped "Mandarin" 8537 and is already in great shape.

 

[JeremyL]

Nice haul, and good resto.

Suggestion: When you do a restore, photo(s) of the before as well as after.

And avoid white backgrounds unless it's a Meer!

Thanks. I did take a couple before but they really don't show much. It was in really good shape except a bit of chatter and some moderate oxidation. I can show more up-close 'before pics' in the future if that's desired.

Oh, I also gave it a cotton-ball deghosting soak. It had a very mild sweet tobacco scent that I kinda liked, but figured I'd try and remove that. Smells of lovely wood now.

I think the white shows the up close pipe pretty well (as in the restored pics), but the collection photos are indeed hard to see against the white. Mostly I need better lighting. I actually noticed there are only 48 pipes show, and I have 52... so I need to reshoot anyway. Not sure how that happened.