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dunnyboy

Lifer
Jul 6, 2018
2,412
29,243
New York
It was the stunning photos of Greg Pease's collection that got me interested in branching outside my handful of Dunhills. Influenced by the beauty of his pipes, I even began accumulating Castello nose warmers and shape 55s. I ended up selling all but one, a shape 55, because I didn't like the way they smoked (for me). But it hurt a little to take them off my racks. Greg's beautiful pictures and descriptions might be one of the biggest factors in the popularity of certain brands and shapes of pipes. Another great article of course.
 

JOHN72

Lifer
Sep 12, 2020
5,136
51,567
51
Spain - Europe
Beautiful article. Although I have been smoking pipes for a few years, I am not attracted to collecting pipes if I am not going to use them. I imagine that one day I will have a modest collection. But I only buy them to enjoy smoking them, and not for any other purpose, decorative, etc. I imagine that when I run out of tobacco, or cannot smoke for some reason, they will remain in my smoker's cabinet. A nice souvenir, for the living, or not.
 
My first search query for pipes were Dublins, especially long and lanky ones. I don't know why. They just appealed to me. Then, I turned to bulldogs, but I avoided "classic" bulldogs, and went for usually wide or tall bowls, the more ridiculous the better. Then in exploring the differences between small bowls and large bowls, I started collecting the extremely large and small sized chambers.
All of this, because I just didn't see myself as a My Three Sons, 1950's, square pipesmoking dad with a plain-ol plain-ol billiard... until I had a billiard made... I liked it... just a tool sorta thing. Then I offset this with some Danish weirdness, a few more billiards, a few more Danes... Still mostly my pipes are bulldogs and dublins, but I now have a row of humdrum billiards in the mix.

I think of it as multiple collections, within a collection.
 

cigrmaster

Lifer
May 26, 2012
20,249
57,280
66
Sarasota Florida
I have 38 American made artisan pipes with the majority being made by Rad Davis and Jack Howell.
I recently had Jack make me 13 commissions and hope to some day get more if he takes a break from the Pittsburg Philharmonic Orchestra. I also have 3 meers but rarely if ever smoke them.

I have a good number of Rad Davis pipes .,unfortunately Rad retired so the estate market is the only way to buy his.

Now tobacco I am flush with.. 99% flakes, plugs and rope almost all of it is at least 10 years old. My collection is the envy of the entire world as I have such good taste when it comes to tobacco.

So the answer is I am both collector of pipes and tobacco and It is fitting for a man of my discriminating tastes.
 

timt

Lifer
Jul 19, 2018
2,844
22,729
Trying my best not to be a collector - at least of "expensive" pipes. There are just too many more important things that get my money. I think one of the reasons why I've moved further toward the simple cob is admitting the fact that nobody sees me smoking anyway. Even if I am spotted in the wild with one of my Castellos, who would know or care?