Some yes, some no. The real question is (we've all witnessed the water flush controversy) are briar pipes SPONGEABLE?
A Rumination on the Fungibility of Briar Pipes
- Thread starter Briar Lee
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Are you sure you're that it's tobacco you're smoking?And, if pipes can communicate between each other, by some process we cannot be aware of, would those chunks of old briar fashioned into smoking pipes be arguing between themselves which was best, or would they be swapping stories about how some guy dug them up and then after that they get stuffed with burning leaves, and they must be in some sort of briar hell.
It is best to keep the pipes in the freezer. Along with the fishes............I think it is the most fungible..................It's the only way to spit out the evil spirit, of a possessed pipe.............It's because of Halloween, right?
I love that something gets lost in translation, but I can still tell that you are having a great time. I keep my fishes in the freezer too, but not the pipes. Those are better off in an aquarium with little fake plants and a deep sea diver that makes bubbles in the water.
How many hit the dictionary before responding? [I must confess that my first thought was that our lawyer friend must live in the tropics where everything rots. Either that or he was an excessive drooler who really needs to see a doctor ]
No. A Bic lighter is fungible.
It takes time to break in a pipe to the point where it provides a satisfying smoke.
Plus one learns any idiosyncrasies of each individual pipe
Over time one learns which blends work best in the different bowl sizes and shapes, which to me is not what I consider to be easily replaced.
Many would say that cob pipes are replaceable but I would argue different.
Doesn't get much better than a well seasoned cob.
I really don't like breaking in new cobs so for that reason alone I treat my cobs with the same respect as my briars.
]No. A Bic lighter is fungible.
It takes time to break in a pipe to the point where it provides a satisfying smoke.
Plus one learns any idiosyncrasies of each individual pipe
Over time one learns which blends work best in the different bowl sizes and shapes, which to me is not what I consider to be easily replaced.
Many would say that cob pipes are replaceable but I would argue different.
Doesn't get much better than a well seasoned cob.
I really don't like breaking in new cobs so for that reason alone I treat my cobs with the same respect as my briars.
Not all briar is created equal. Like anything else, briar is subject to the laws that govern evolution, the survival of the fittest.
Among briars, as I am sure @Briar Lee can readily attest, there is a pecking order imposed upon the fauna subject to the geometry of curves as all things are. This curve is the Bell Curve and one can only deduce that along whatever Bell Curve reflects the Kingdom of Briar, there are low grade briars, average briars, and from time to time, exceptional briars. The same is true of people, animals, and of life itself.
Now, so long as we are all eating magic mushrooms on this journey, I mean thread, then let us imagine that on Saturday mornings when briars gather around to watch television, their favorite movie is by Sergio Leone's, "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly."
The question for us as pipe smokers is simple: What briars play each of the major characters in the movie?
Personally, I think most briars that are selected for pipes are fairly equal. Exceptional briar that is akin to being Mensa quality, is not subject to the domain of any one pipe maker, but reveals itself by chance in the hands of a skilled craftsman.
Among briars, as I am sure @Briar Lee can readily attest, there is a pecking order imposed upon the fauna subject to the geometry of curves as all things are. This curve is the Bell Curve and one can only deduce that along whatever Bell Curve reflects the Kingdom of Briar, there are low grade briars, average briars, and from time to time, exceptional briars. The same is true of people, animals, and of life itself.
Now, so long as we are all eating magic mushrooms on this journey, I mean thread, then let us imagine that on Saturday mornings when briars gather around to watch television, their favorite movie is by Sergio Leone's, "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly."
The question for us as pipe smokers is simple: What briars play each of the major characters in the movie?
Personally, I think most briars that are selected for pipes are fairly equal. Exceptional briar that is akin to being Mensa quality, is not subject to the domain of any one pipe maker, but reveals itself by chance in the hands of a skilled craftsman.
The google translator is an engineering masterpiece. I'm thinking of reopening Purgatory................I love that something gets lost in translation, but I can still tell that you are having a great time. I keep my fishes in the freezer too, but not the pipes. Those are better off in an aquarium with little fake plants and a deep sea diver that makes bubbles in the water.
I had the honor and privilege to have been given a three hour guided tour of the relevant places mentioned in the 1944 New York Time bestselling book “Walkin’ Preacher of the Ozarks” by the author Guy Howard, which were in northern Hickory County, Missouri, on Monday afternoon. The scenes there are located about four miles from the hamlet of Jordan, and seven miles from the city of Cross Timbers (population 212) which itself is about twenty miles from Hermitage, the county seat of Hickory County. I’d heard old timers warn me not to drink moonshine liquor all my life, because J.W. Ray (a distant cousin of mine from the Ray side of my father’s family) had first went blind, then bled from his eyes, and finally died after several days of agony while the night riders waited around his parent’s cabin (actually a rather large and spacious house) to deliver hillbilly justice to Rolf England, local ne’er do well and moonshiner, if 16 year old Ray died.
Guy Howard was a Campbellite preacher, and made a desperate run on a path I was shown through the woods by the grandson of the largest and angriest man mentioned in the book determined to hang Rolf England for his wicked deeds he’d done, to warn Rolf the night riders were right behind him lighting torches as he’d left, and for him to flee for his life.
Rolf England made the plea to Guy Howard that his moonshine was good liquor, the same as any other good liquor, and that he’d not in any event supplied that Ray boy with the bad liquor that poisoned him. Yet Guy Howard wrote that Rolf’s eyes were as full of guilt and remorse as fear of the night riders, and he slipped north into Benton County where it was hoped fear of strong law enforcement might preserve his life from the vigilantes. This it did, and although J W Ray died without naming specifically the man who sold him bad liquor, Rolf England lived the remainer of his fifty or so years after 1937 an infamous man, whose moonshine was no longer considered fungible, with other such illicit product of the hill country of northern Hickory County.
The maker of Pipes by Lee did find a way to prevent briar poisoning while breaking in a new pipe, and others may have too, but while briar poisoning is unpleasant I’ve never heard of anybody going blind or dying of it.
But J W Ray learned the hard way, that not all white lighting is as safe as the rest.
Yet on the other hand, pretty girls may be the same whether they live along the River Thames, the Hudson River, or the old River Rhine. The Warsaw radio station plays old tear jerkers like this one, to keep us hill country folks smiling as we continue our journey through life.
FRAULEIN
Someday we may know, when we meet Guy Howard and J W Ray, and all others that have gone on before, in that bright land where we’ll all smoke nothing but Lees, or maybe a Dunhill, if you prefer.
Guy Howard was a Campbellite preacher, and made a desperate run on a path I was shown through the woods by the grandson of the largest and angriest man mentioned in the book determined to hang Rolf England for his wicked deeds he’d done, to warn Rolf the night riders were right behind him lighting torches as he’d left, and for him to flee for his life.
Rolf England made the plea to Guy Howard that his moonshine was good liquor, the same as any other good liquor, and that he’d not in any event supplied that Ray boy with the bad liquor that poisoned him. Yet Guy Howard wrote that Rolf’s eyes were as full of guilt and remorse as fear of the night riders, and he slipped north into Benton County where it was hoped fear of strong law enforcement might preserve his life from the vigilantes. This it did, and although J W Ray died without naming specifically the man who sold him bad liquor, Rolf England lived the remainer of his fifty or so years after 1937 an infamous man, whose moonshine was no longer considered fungible, with other such illicit product of the hill country of northern Hickory County.
The maker of Pipes by Lee did find a way to prevent briar poisoning while breaking in a new pipe, and others may have too, but while briar poisoning is unpleasant I’ve never heard of anybody going blind or dying of it.
But J W Ray learned the hard way, that not all white lighting is as safe as the rest.
Yet on the other hand, pretty girls may be the same whether they live along the River Thames, the Hudson River, or the old River Rhine. The Warsaw radio station plays old tear jerkers like this one, to keep us hill country folks smiling as we continue our journey through life.
FRAULEIN
Someday we may know, when we meet Guy Howard and J W Ray, and all others that have gone on before, in that bright land where we’ll all smoke nothing but Lees, or maybe a Dunhill, if you prefer.
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Never heard of of the briar used in pipes being poisonous.
I just looked on Google and found nothing relating to poisonous pipe briar ?
I just looked on Google and found nothing relating to poisonous pipe briar ?
I break in my briar pipes (except for those manufactured by Lee) outside on my deck, or in the woods or fields of the beautiful Missouri Ozarks I’m so blessed and privileged to live in.
To innocent bystanders, the smell of burning briar, is worse than the most Latika rich blend extant.
I also make double sure to smoke a pipe all the way to the bottom, so as to season the briar where the pipe won’t stink up a room with briar smell.
I’ve noticed that raw briar sometimes tastes sweet, but more often sort of poisonous, and I often wonder why that first briar pipe smoker, didn’t put that awful tasting pipe down before it was broken in.
But if all briar is fungible, how come Pipes by Lee (and sub brands thereof) never have the slightest taste or whiff of burning briar during break in?
Here are six Star Grade Lee pipes, plus a Pipe Maker, all made in a similar size and shape from the 1950s to sometime in the 1970s.
One stinger will interchange with any of them, yet no stem lines up if you try changing stems.
By the time Lee went to five pointed stars, his pipes cost five dollars per star. He never advertised the Pipe Maker sub brand, but the likely cost of these three pipes were $2.50, $10, and $15. The top dollar three star, has better grained briar. All three are heavenly, but slightly different smokers. Only Lee knows his secret, of how he got the stink out, of the briar.
To innocent bystanders, the smell of burning briar, is worse than the most Latika rich blend extant.
I also make double sure to smoke a pipe all the way to the bottom, so as to season the briar where the pipe won’t stink up a room with briar smell.
I’ve noticed that raw briar sometimes tastes sweet, but more often sort of poisonous, and I often wonder why that first briar pipe smoker, didn’t put that awful tasting pipe down before it was broken in.
But if all briar is fungible, how come Pipes by Lee (and sub brands thereof) never have the slightest taste or whiff of burning briar during break in?
Here are six Star Grade Lee pipes, plus a Pipe Maker, all made in a similar size and shape from the 1950s to sometime in the 1970s.
One stinger will interchange with any of them, yet no stem lines up if you try changing stems.
By the time Lee went to five pointed stars, his pipes cost five dollars per star. He never advertised the Pipe Maker sub brand, but the likely cost of these three pipes were $2.50, $10, and $15. The top dollar three star, has better grained briar. All three are heavenly, but slightly different smokers. Only Lee knows his secret, of how he got the stink out, of the briar.
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WTF? Ha ha, You must choo choo through the break in, or is it these lower than Lee pipes made with poisonous poorly graded briars?
Smoked slow with my favorite blend that is open at the time, I thoroughly enjoy my inaugural smokes in a new pipe. The first warmed briar aroma (no actually burning of the briar) sets that new to me briar into my DNA... bonds me to the pipe. I am enjoying your posts. Keep them coming. But, maybe slow down while "breaking them in."
Even if sipped and smoked slowly, some new briars require a dozen smokes or more to quit tasting briar.
If you can taste briar, others can smell it.
If you’re inside, they don’t like it. If you’re outside they’ll likely ask if your pipe is burning.
Here’s a mystery. Below is a late 40’s Kaywoodie Super Grain Author and beside it a Pipe Maker Prince of Wales of similar vintage. The Kaywoodie brought $5 new and the Pipe Maker likely half that much, as an unadvertised Lee sub brand.
Even fully broken in, both about three quarters of a century old, that Lee cured briar will not get hot, nearly as easily as the Kaywoodie. Lee briar retains whatever curing it received to make it nearly fireproof for a very long time.
If you can taste briar, others can smell it.
If you’re inside, they don’t like it. If you’re outside they’ll likely ask if your pipe is burning.
Here’s a mystery. Below is a late 40’s Kaywoodie Super Grain Author and beside it a Pipe Maker Prince of Wales of similar vintage. The Kaywoodie brought $5 new and the Pipe Maker likely half that much, as an unadvertised Lee sub brand.
Even fully broken in, both about three quarters of a century old, that Lee cured briar will not get hot, nearly as easily as the Kaywoodie. Lee briar retains whatever curing it received to make it nearly fireproof for a very long time.
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Burning briar is one of the most amazing things I have read on this forum since the days of Starcat. I also wonder what kind of lighter is needed to burn a briar pipe?
My briars, I can smell and taste the aroma of still, and some are more than 100 years old. This is why I prefer briar to all of those lesser quality materials pipes. (JK about lesser)
To me, it is the warmed briar aroma that gives pipe tobacco it's pipe-y smell. And, it is at it's most beautiful on it's first smoke. When folks talk about poor quality briar, my mind jumps to those green DR. Grabows, and all of these cheap pipes you collect, so... YMMV
Now, if you are actually burning the briar, and smelling the smoke of incinerating wood, then you are smoking in a style very different from me.
During the postwar period, Kaywoodie and Dunhill were priced the same, in the American market, assuming the same grade.
The Dunhill might have been subjected to import tariffs.
But Kaywoodie used the best of the best briar for some time after the war.
What rained on Kaywoodie was inflation.
A 1940 Ford cost $500.
A 1950 Ford cost $1,500.
And a 1965 Ford cost $3,000.
In 1970 a $10 Flame Grain in 1940 which was a spectacular pipe, was a far less quantity $10 pipe in 1970.
Lee matched Kaywoodie prices at first then raised them to keep up briar quality.
A brand new Grade 1 Nording I just broke in must have had very green briar, because it was torture to smoke the first half dozen bowls. Now at about twenty bowls it’s a good, but not yet excellent smoker. It gets better each smoke.
Lee used an oil cure, to make the finest production pipes on earth after the war.
Lees tend smaller than newer pipes, as smaller was the style then.
But Lee used the same oil cured highly figured briar on his $4 Briarlee pipes as his $20 and $25 grade Four and Five Star grade, with a few fills or carvings to disguise flaws.
Try one sometime, in high original condition.
Briar matters.