B&M stopped selling meerschaum cobs?

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hakchuma

Part of the Furniture Now
Jan 13, 2014
791
77
Visited the local Tobacco shop to buy me another cob. He told me that they stopped selling them because they were low quality and customers were always trying to return them. I was dumbfounded and asked oh ya? The he said that Missouri Meerschaum was selling them thier defect pipes on the cheap.
Still scratching my head on that one. still trying to figure out why he would say so,etching like that. Could it be true?
Makes me want to go back to the store and get his story on video.

 

jvnshr

Moderator
Staff member
Sep 4, 2015
4,616
3,868
Baku, Azerbaijan
I recently purchased some corn cobs online, after delivery I checked them carefully and found some imperfections. So I contacted the seller and asked if he was just grabbing a bag of MM corn cobs and and selling online, here is his response.
I buy bulk quantity directly from Missouri Meerschaum. I have never purchased the grab bags. The grab bags are seconds and will be marked with a X in black permanent marker by MM to distinguish them. Over the years the quality has gone down.

In the the past year or so I have not seen a "perfect" cob. I am also told that their is no "perfect" cob.

 
May 3, 2010
6,423
1,461
Las Vegas, NV
Interesting.
I only have five cobs all from Missouri Meerschaum. Not sure how one would say they're perfect or imperfect. It's a cob of corn with a dowel shank shoved into it and a cheap plastic stem attached. Not much to the aesthetics or engineering.
I will say all five of them smoke well. Haven't had issues like the shank coming loose or anything like. If it did I'd just shell out another $4-$8 and buy a new one.

 

rigmedic1

Lifer
May 29, 2011
3,896
75
The really nice cobs are the Diplomats, Country Gentlemen, Mark Twain, etc. But a cob is a cob! I bought a nice Diplomat off a card in a Newstand while I was in Fort Lauderdale a couple of months back. Order direct from Missourri Meerschaum. Those folks are great. And the grab bags full of pipes are just as smokeable.

 

prairiedruid

Lifer
Jun 30, 2015
1,998
1,116
Cobs make up 90% of my pipes and I have had all good smokers from Missouri Meerschaum. Great selection in styles and sizes. Cheap but adequate stems that I might upgrade to some forever stems on my favorites. Can't go wrong with the price.

 
Mar 1, 2014
3,646
4,916
he said that Missouri Meerschaum was selling them thier defect pipes on the cheap.
Do they let customers know they're getting a reject?

I wouldn't be surprised to find someone trying to sell off grab-bag pipes as new.

As far as the quality of the pipes in general goes I've found that fit and finish went up between last year and this year.
I should also note that while the bits are inexpensive, they're engineered better than any factory or handmade Vulcanite stem that I own. The way they taper on the inside would be extremely difficult to reproduce by hand.

 

jvnshr

Moderator
Staff member
Sep 4, 2015
4,616
3,868
Baku, Azerbaijan
I was talking about the look of the cobs and with imperfections I meant some small chips and stains on them. How they smoke? They smoke great, each time I light a bowl I just get surprised, even the small Nose Warmer Morgan has a cool smoke. I will buy more in the future for my collection for sure.

 

stvalentine

Part of the Furniture Now
Jan 13, 2015
808
13
Northern Germany
There must be something fundamentally wrong with people who expect a "perfect cob". Those are cheap, expendable and easy to replace pipes for outdoor use or the like. Meanwhile I have eight cobs and I never expected any of them to be perfect. Heck, it´s not that I´ve tried to buy a handmade straight grain collectors pipe! People are strange..... :roll:

 

brass

Lifer
Jun 4, 2014
1,840
7
United States
How would you even determine if a cob was perfect? Rustic look, rough, irregular surfact, varying kernel holes, slightly uneven rims are just part of the aesthetic.
Unless the pipe leaks or burns through after a couple of smokes, if it smokes well, it is a perfect cob. I have about 3 dozen cobs mostly Missouri Merschaum and a half dozen artisan finished MMs. They're all rustic. If they weren't, they would indeed be imperfect.

 

mrbigglesworth

Starting to Get Obsessed
Sep 1, 2015
196
1
Winston Salem, NC
You make a cob your own by smoking it, charring the rim, adding a stain or a stem... At least that's what I thought. And the "imperfections" are character, right? :crazy:

 

tobyducote

Lifer
Jun 10, 2012
1,204
3
New Orleans
I don't think that guy has a clue as to what he's talking about...if you treat a cob like a cheap pipe, it will act like a cheap pipe...but that goes for any pipe...I have a lot of very inexpensive MM cobs and I've never had a bad one.

 

pappymac

Lifer
Feb 26, 2015
3,270
4,261
You don't buy a cob to be a collector's item and sit on a bookcase. You buy a cob to smoke it. I always take a cob with me when I go fishing because I've learned that if I drop it over the side, I just have to reach over and pick it up as it floats very well.

 
I only have four MM pipes that actually worked when I got them, out of about twelve. Over and over, they come with air leaking around where the shank comes into the bowl, the shank is upside down, or completely separated on arrival. Even the ones given to me at the NOLA show leak air like crazy. I just put them in the bag. No need to pursue it anyways, I really don't enjoy cobs very much.

I know, I know, I could use wood glue or Elmers to glue it back in, but the idea of smoking glue... blech. worse than just smoking a corncob to begin with.

But, I can very well see where a B&M, not making but about a dime profit off a cheap ass cob, would want to get rid of them. Besides, you can order the things from Amazon, and just let them deal with the inevitable returns. Because, in my experience, the majority of them sold will leak air. It's almost like Petersons has bought the company or something, ha ha!! :wink: :puffy:

 

anarchisthermit

Might Stick Around
Aug 31, 2015
91
1
If you smoke a cob, you will smoke a little glue,that is how the factory attaches the shank.
IMO, the beauty of cobs is how ugly they eventually look. The majority of my cobs are 4 - 5 years old. Because they are well seasoned, I have a hard to impossible time deciding whether my meers or briars smoke better. I rank all of them about equal.

 

hakchuma

Part of the Furniture Now
Jan 13, 2014
791
77
I stopped by the B&M yesterday and was surprised to find he was selling them again. They had two with card-board displays. One had four remaining on one display so I bought those and he let me have the display. I didn't ask any questions as I was simply happy they were selling them. They were selling the legends for $3.98 which is a great deal from a local B&M. I have know idea why he had told me that they stopped selling them. Strange. Oh well.
Also purchased half & half and Prince Albert for the first time.. Boy that was a mistake lol.
I

 

aggravatedfarmer

Part of the Furniture Now
Sep 9, 2015
865
3
Cobs are replaceable. You get good ones and you get bad ones. "Life is like a box of cobs, you never know whatcha gonna get".

 

brudnod

Part of the Furniture Now
Aug 26, 2013
938
6
Great Falls, VA
I have a great number of [reasonably] good briars. That being said, the cobs that I own and smoke with some frequency have never been attended to the same way I do the "better" pipes. But the smokability of the cobs is excellent and I would not negate the smoking quality of the pipes no matter what they looked like. They are smoking pipes and good at it!

 

mikestanley

Lifer
May 10, 2009
1,698
1,126
Akron area of Ohio
My experience with some B&M owners or employees is that if they don't currently have something,its been discontinued or some such reason why they don't have it and there isn't any reason to look elsewhere. Might as well buy something else here. Probably not the best business model for the long term but, they just want you to spend your money there.Today.Also, I can't imagine there is mush profit in a Missouri Meerschaum, especially when they have all those "regular" pipes you could buy!
Mike S.

 

okiescout

Lifer
Jan 27, 2013
1,530
6
There must be something fundamentally wrong with people who expect a "perfect cob".

Ditto, Stvalentine.
Mine have all been Diplomats and they all work.
My experience with some B&M owners or employees is that if they don't currently have something, its been discontinued or some such reason why they don't have it and there isn't any reason to look elsewhere.
That is what I have observed at mine also, Mike. However some of the guys are better than others at working with pipe smokers.

 
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