Chinese Briars

[bouwser]

And I enjoyed my “Church Reader”, but I’m still puzzling over the fancy crucifix that’s stamped into the shank...

I have this too on at least one of mine. I wonder if it is a maker's mark?

 

[gatorlope]

I was thinking the same thing... there has to be some significance to it’s manufacture, but as an individual or a community?

 

[craiginthecorn]

Sorry, I messed up the post of my Zhiputang pipe photos and my phone battery died while trying to fix it. Let's try again.

 

[gatorlope]

Lookin’ good!

 

[gatorlope]

I see the Zhiputang pipes on pipe hub and though they’re not cheap, they’re considerably cheaper than those made by Ping Zhan and they give you the option of making an offer.

 

[gatorlope]

I’ve been trading e-mails with the distributor (Bernandci) to get some insight into the pipe’s markings.
The anchor mark is standard on their Road Town line of traditional shapes. When they’ve taken a traditional shape and significantly “modernized” it and added the “army set” (?) mouthpiece to it, like the church warden becoming the “Church Reader”, they add the cross mark. They say that it’s just the mark they use and there’s no Christian connotation intended.
The numbers stamped on the shanks are there so they can identify who the “pipe maker” was in case there are any problems.

 

[gatorlope]

Still smoking my Road Town & HS Studio pipes and I haven’t keeled over yet. Of the five pipes,the church reader is the one that I go to most often, despite the fact that I can’t put a Softy bit cover on the skinny bit piece. I wish I could, though.

 

[Sloopjohnbee]

I think I have a chinese that someone here might need to help me identify. It's quite old. It has a variation of a stinger type insert.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Do start a new thread, with 4-5 photos or so.

 

[daniel7]

These pipes look nice! I will try one someday I think.

 

[cohibajoe]

This physician said he personally would never put something in his mouth that came from China. I follow that advice.

Sound advice to follow.

 

[gatorlope]

I got a surprise yesterday! I just bought a collection of 10 sealed containers of tobacco and 6 pipes. They arrived and one of the pipes turned out to be an HS Studio pipe!

I went ahead and cleaned it up with some alcohol and smoked a bowl, so I’ll take a few pictures and post them along with some comments shortly.

 

[sablebrush52]

One of my doctors is from China. (He’s a US citizen now.) This physician said he personally would never put something in his mouth that came from China. I follow that advice.

I had a Chinese girlfriend years ago. Does that count?

 

[gatorlope]

(GRIN!). It might! I had a coworker for a while that married a Chinese lady that was a respected businesswoman in her own community and they got married in China

What she might not have known and he wasn’t (?) telling her was that he was living in a mobile home that was parked on property that belonged to his ex wife...

I wonder what her impression of Americans is these days?

 

[gatorlope]

My not quite new HS Studio pipe

From the bottom- each one of those loops is a perforation that passes completely through the lip of the pipe.

The last photo shows some nice grain and birds’ eye along the stem
Smoking it was interesting because the bowl is angled like a Cutty, but I packed the tobacco level, so I actually got too much smoke at first, but that evened out as it burned down and I’ll know not to overfill it the next time.
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