Any Experience with Cheap, No-name Cobs?

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LuckyGlenn

Might Stick Around
Jul 12, 2023
59
701
I went to a local shop and seen this hanging behind the counter on a missouri meerschaum display. With about a dozen other cobs and some genuine ozark hardwood pipes. As i was checking out I told the lady behind the counter to to let me get one of the cobs. I thought because they were hanging on a missouri meerschaum display that they would be legit, boy was I wrong. I'm not even upset about it. I figured since I already have it that I will torture test it and post results until It falls apart.
Have any of you ever had one of these, if so how does it smoke?
 

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Last edited:

elvishrunes

Can't Leave
Jun 19, 2017
352
647
Before I even read the other comments I was guessing it is a Chinese knock off... MM cobs are so cheap it’s barely even worth trying another brand, however, clearly your purchase was an accident, oh well stuff happens. They make some pretty good products in China these days, but still lots of crap too, and doubt cobs would be any good.
 

jpmcwjr

Moderate Moderator
Staff member
May 12, 2015
26,123
29,955
Carmel Valley, CA
<< Snipped bits out >> I figured since I already have it that I will torture test it and post results until It falls apart.
Have any of you ever had one of these, if so how does it smoke?
Kind of you to offer testing, but it's for amusement value, no?

I wouldn't smoke that for any amount. Well, no one's going to offer me a dime anyway, but if you are it'd have to be North of six figures... :)
 
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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,960
14,303
Humansville Missouri
About fifty years ago I made my own corn cob pipe. Whether in Missouri or China a corn cob pipe tastes like a corn cob pipe, but MM uses vastly better cobs than the others.

The first reason is MM worked with the genetics department of the University of Missouri in the 1940s to develop a hybrid corn seed that is for corn cob pipes. MM contracts with local farmers who use forties corn pickers to deliver that hybrid corn to the factory, where the corn is hulled and sold as feed corn.

A MM cob is bigger and it’s tougher than all the other cobs.

Then MM ages and dries them two years in the attic. I doubt the Chinese do that.

MM’s better pipes are plastered and their best have a wooden dowel plug in the bottom.

My cob I used might have been ten years old in the crib. It certainly was dried two years. It tasted like an MM with a smaller bore, and burned out quicker.

Buy the only highest quality cob pipe in the world, by Missouri Meerschaum.

They have a monopoly on the best cob pipes.
 

RookieGuy80

Part of the Furniture Now
Jul 6, 2023
734
2,709
Maryland, United States
Lots of people said the only cob worth the price is Missouri Meerschaum, and it is true that they are the gold standard for cobs. But there is another brand worthy of at least consideration. Old Dominion sold to Missouri Meerschaum a few years ago, and MM still puts out the OD cobs with the reed stem.

That cob you found probably should have stayed at that shop. But since you have it, maybe Halloween? Or the snowman at the local park could use a corn cob pipe to go with his button nose.
 

mateusbrown

Might Stick Around
Apr 24, 2022
89
273
Georgia, USA
how does it smoke?
Terribly. I got one for $5 I think it was, and after two smokes, the stem cracked. Both times I got a corn taste along with the burley tobacco. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed corny. I sat it in the cabinet instead of throwing it away although I don't know wny. Never snows enough here to bring Frosty to life.
 

LuckyGlenn

Might Stick Around
Jul 12, 2023
59
701
Terribly. I got one for $5 I think it was, and after two smokes, the stem cracked. Both times I got a corn taste along with the burley tobacco. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed corny. I sat it in the cabinet instead of throwing it away although I don't know wny. Never snows enough here to bring Frosty to life.
I'm smoking the third bowl in this knockoff cob as I am typing. This cob definitely has a strange taste to it that a don't get from MM
 
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