Bing Crosby Pipe shape?

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grams47

Lurker
Jun 2, 2016
1
0
I happen to know the man that made all of Bing Crosby's pipes. In fact I have a couple of his pipes still. they weren't Canadians like Bing smoked but they were hand carved and designed to fit my hand. The pipe maker's name was Travers La Rue and he had a shop in Langley Washington.

 

papipeguy

Lifer
Jul 31, 2010
15,777
40
Bethlehem, Pa.
After seeing jiminks' pipe I contacted Basil Meadows and he made this for me. I got it this past February. Basil is a wonderful guy and makes a fantastic pipe.
jltIxVw.jpg

w2U9sjA.jpg


 
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jpmcwjr

Lifer
May 12, 2015
26,273
30,306
Carmel Valley, CA
I happen to know the man that made all of Bing Crosby's pipes. In fact I have a couple of his pipes still. they weren't Canadians like Bing smoked but they were hand carved and designed to fit my hand. The pipe maker's name was Travers La Rue and he had a shop in Langley Washington.
A photo or two would be appreciated.

 

bigpond

Lifer
Oct 14, 2014
2,019
14
I would love to see something that supports a connection between Crosby and Travers LaRue of Whidbey Island pipes. From what I've been able to find, Trav only made pipes from '72 until his death in '83. Previous to this, Trav was a "finish carpenter in San Fernando Valley not a pipe maker. Bing died in Spain in '77, there is only a little overlap in which he might have purchased a pipe from Trav's shop.
Most of the pipes made by Trav and later his son and apprentice, were freehand's and not at all gracile. As we've seen, Bing had walls of pipes of a variety of styles.
JP, I now you've told me before how to embed a photo but yawl are going to have to go old school here.
The closest thing I could find to a "bing"

https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipes/estate/united-states/moreinfo.cfm?product_id=200820
More in keeping with the typical stiff I could find:

http://imgur.com/a/VKmzw
a couple of interesting links:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PipeTobacco/comments/2yk3fm/anybody_know_anything_about_larue_whidbey/
And a little family history/legacy on Whidbey

http://blog.seattlepi.com/whidbey/2006/11/05/oh-those-larue-girls/

 

jpmcwjr

Lifer
May 12, 2015
26,273
30,306
Carmel Valley, CA
BP-
This is a way to add photos to your post:
Once your photos are on a photo hosting site such as Imgur.com, select the image, then Control-click (Mac) or Right-click (Windows) and choose copy image location. Now paste the URL into the box that pops up under IMG in the compose reply window of the thread.

 

huntertrw

Lifer
Jul 23, 2014
5,839
7,463
The Lower Forty of Hill Country
"I happen to know the man that made all of Bing Crosby's pipes."
Really? ALL of his pipes?
The fact is that throughout his life Mr. Crosby smoked pipes from a variety of makers including Sasieni, Merchant Service, Dunhill, et al. Did he also smoke a pipe manufactured by Mr. LaRue? Possibly, although I have seen no definitive proof of that assertion.

 
Apr 26, 2012
3,596
8,227
Washington State
My friend commissioned Phil Rivara to make a Bing Crosby pipe styled after the Dunhill version. He likes a more wide open draw so he wasn't really smoking this pipe. I bought it from him, and there is nothing wrong with the draw at all. The pipe is a great smoking pipe, and my friend now regrets selling me the pipe.


 

shutterbugg

Lifer
Nov 18, 2013
1,451
22
My Basil Bing is almost exactly like yours ^. Just smoked it today in fact. One of the best pipes I've ever owned. Aside from the need for long pipecleaners, it's as close to perfect as a pipe can get.

 

JimInks

Sultan of Smoke
Aug 31, 2012
64,566
648,171
I smoke mine nearly every day since I got it in November. I have the first Bing Basil made, and it smokes like a dream.

 
Aug 14, 2012
2,872
127
The Crosbys are my most smoked pipes. Currently I have 17, all very good smokers, all Dunhills. Even a #1, which I believe was not intended to be a Crosby because it lacks the silver band and inward tilting top.

 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,211
60,622
I take it that all of the pipe makers who use Crosby's name (Dunhill, Savinelli, etc.) have to pay ongoing licensing fees to the Crosby estate. That must be good for any surviving sons or grandkids, if the rights are renewable. That's a nice legacy to leave behind. No one will forget Grandpa Bing.

 

huntertrw

Lifer
Jul 23, 2014
5,839
7,463
The Lower Forty of Hill Country
"No one will forget Grandpa Bing."
Not true. To wit, in the May 9, 2012 on-line edition of The Wall Street Journal author Joanne Kaufman opened an article in the "Books" section with the following:
"More than a dozen years ago, jazz critic Gary Giddins made an appointment with his editor at the publisher William Morrow. Mr. Giddins had some very good news: He'd completed his manuscript of his long-aborning Bing Crosby biography. But Mr. Giddins also had a bit of bad news: It was merely volume one.
"Well, in that case the editor had some bad news of her own: The nine-year-old project was being killed and the advance would have to be returned. "She said, 'Who's Bing Crosby? Is it someone our parents knew?'" recalled Mr. Giddins, who got a far more sympathetic hearing at Little, Brown & Co., which was immediately on board with the two-volume approach. In 2001, the company published the 768-page "Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams—the Early Years (1903-1940)." As for Der Bingle's later years, "all I can say is I'm working every day," Mr. Giddins said."
Sadly, I daresay that if today you were to ask the average 20-something for their thoughts on Mr. Crosby the response would likewise be a disheartening "Who?".

 

huntertrw

Lifer
Jul 23, 2014
5,839
7,463
The Lower Forty of Hill Country
"No one will forget Grandpa Bing."
Not true. To wit, consider these comments featured during the opening of the PBS "American Masters" program titled "Bing Crosby Rediscovered":
"Nobody would dream that Crosby would fade..." - Michael Feinstein
"I assumed that people remembered how much they loved him." - Kathryn Crosby
"Some guy came up to me and said 'Didn't you used to be Bing Crosby?'" - Bing Crosby

 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,211
60,622
It's a generational curse. When the celebrities pop up in the home page and ad material online, with juicy tidbits about romances, break-ups, celebrity arrests, and new tunes and movies, I haven't a clue who most of these people are. I'd put the age of name recognition for Bing at about 50, but it could be older than that. "White Christmas" does get re-played on TV around the holidays, but younger people probably do not retain the name of the star. When younger people think of a really, really old celebrity, someone who is old enough to have passed on, they think of Mick Jagger. Who claims paternity of a newborn with his current wife of 29.

 

jefff

Lifer
May 28, 2015
1,915
6
Chicago
I am a guitar player. Many,many years ago we were having a discussion about "tone" and how it could be described. My friend Ed finally said, "Bing Crosby".
We looked at him and said "huh?" He said that almost every man in America hand the same cocoa range as Bing, but none of them sound like Bing.
That is tone.

 
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