Do Expensive Pipes Really Smoke Better?
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A cheap pipe smokes inevitably bad, a mid range pipe smokes well. A high end pipe only smokes a little bit better than a mid range pipe, but it’s nice to have a quality product.
This is like wine if I compare a midrange bottle of red to a highend one side by side I can tell the difference.
Is it worth the extra money? As a special treat probably.
This is like wine if I compare a midrange bottle of red to a highend one side by side I can tell the difference.
Is it worth the extra money? As a special treat probably.
Captain Black Regular (White) gives me the same satisfying smoke in all my pipes. :roll:
Gooping up a fancy pipe, however, is NOT recommended!
Gooping up a fancy pipe, however, is NOT recommended!
Just smoked back to back bowls of LTF in a Linkman's zulu and a Dunhill Shell Briar zulu. No discernible difference.
I love, more than anything else related to this thread, that it has been repeatedly dredged up over seven years. Such a fun topic. It seems to me that pipes are like any other art piece; the work and skill put into them matter to a point, but after that the piece is worth whatever someone is willing to pay. An expensive piece of art doesn't allow your eyes to see better than a cheap piece of art, but you may like looking at it more. Or maybe not. The tobacco, consciousness and hand of the smoker probably has much more to do with the measure of the smoking experience than the pipe itself.
It's the question that's wrong here.
The question isn't whether expense makes a pipe better. It doesn't. How could it? An arbitrarily assigned number? Uh uh.
So the question properly asked is, what makes some pipes better than others in any of the definable ways we might choose to talk about, and how might this relate to expense?
Then you can talk about briar quality, "engineering", constant volume airways and Bernoulli's laws... whatever you think is part of the formula.
The idea that all pipes smoke the same is nonsense. The idea that all expensive pipes necessarily smoke better than cheap ones is also nonsense. A pipe is a tiny thermodynamics equation in action. Get the equation right, pipe is good. Get it wrong, pipe is bad (gurgles mostly). And getting that equation right, that takes a bit of care in assembly. Call it engineering or crafting or whatever you like - most pipes don't get much of it because it takes time and effort, and that costs too much for a product retailing for 30 bucks.
Funny you hear lots of people say "Ha! My Grabow smokes as good as your Castello!" but it's pretty quiet when it comes to people saying "Yeah, this Castello was a ripoff - I'm going back to Grabows."
The question isn't whether expense makes a pipe better. It doesn't. How could it? An arbitrarily assigned number? Uh uh.
So the question properly asked is, what makes some pipes better than others in any of the definable ways we might choose to talk about, and how might this relate to expense?
Then you can talk about briar quality, "engineering", constant volume airways and Bernoulli's laws... whatever you think is part of the formula.
The idea that all pipes smoke the same is nonsense. The idea that all expensive pipes necessarily smoke better than cheap ones is also nonsense. A pipe is a tiny thermodynamics equation in action. Get the equation right, pipe is good. Get it wrong, pipe is bad (gurgles mostly). And getting that equation right, that takes a bit of care in assembly. Call it engineering or crafting or whatever you like - most pipes don't get much of it because it takes time and effort, and that costs too much for a product retailing for 30 bucks.
Funny you hear lots of people say "Ha! My Grabow smokes as good as your Castello!" but it's pretty quiet when it comes to people saying "Yeah, this Castello was a ripoff - I'm going back to Grabows."
Good post by sasquatch. Occasionally, everything right comes together (and likely by mistake but possibly by pure chance) where a cheap pipe ends up delivering a great smoke. Even more often, this happens with mid range pipes as it is more likely a briar of good quality is used. It is more likely a more expensive pipe will have everything come together. The important thing to note is there is no guarantee. I would bet a reasonable amount of money that no pipe maker/company can claim to have never made a dud.
Bottom line, purchase what you like and can afford, enjoy what you purchase. If it smokes to your pleasure, that's all that matters.
Bottom line, purchase what you like and can afford, enjoy what you purchase. If it smokes to your pleasure, that's all that matters.
A lot has been seen and it is always fun to look at this thread.
My short answer to the original question “Do Expensive Pipes Really Smoke Better?” is that it cannot be answered as the definition of what constitutes a better smoke is different from person to person and even if we agree on some parameters of evaluation the subjective graduation of them would be difficult to have any kind of consistency.
I would instead reformulate the question in this way: “What is the minimum amount of $ I should expect to pay for each one of the different type of pipes (briar, meerschaum, morta and so on) for having an acceptable smoke and what could I expect to gain if I spend more than that?”. This kind of question can be probably answered in a more subjective way as there are minimum costs in material and workmanship which need to be factored for having a decent smoking pipe. If someone is offering you a new briar or meerschaum for 5 $ you should expect there is some problem with it.
So to this type of question I would say you should budget 50 $ minimum for a briar pipe and 100-150 for a meerschaum or morta given the higher cost of their materials. Above that if you double or triple the budget you can have some improving in smoking quality, but not proportional to the increase in price, increased likelihood of not having issues (basically buying insurance in some way) and better cosmetic. Above that point that I would put at around 200$ for a briar and 300-400 $ for a meerschaum or morta you only buy the cosmetic but it is difficult the smoking by itself will improve too much, maybe a little bit for the briars.
By myself I prefer to buy close to the plateau of what I think I can expect in terms of improving smoking capabilities, to give an idea I got a Tom Spanu briar for 240$, a Baki Meerschaum for 315$ and a Il Duca morta for 425$, I love all of them, they are beautiful and all smoke very well with no issues. Could I have a similar quality smoke spending half of what I paid? Possibly but it would not have been guaranteed and the aesthetic could not have been so good (which for me is important, for others no). Could I have a better smoke spending double of what I spent? If anything at that price tag probably it would have been marginal with the difference being mainly cosmetic.
At the very end everyone has to decide what are the important things they are looking in a pipe and then I would suggest to go for the best they can afford in that category. So for example if you like corncob it is perfectly fine, I would just suggest to spend 10 $ for a Meerschaum corncob than 1$ for a chinese cob, most likely you will be satisfied from the Meerschaum one.
My short answer to the original question “Do Expensive Pipes Really Smoke Better?” is that it cannot be answered as the definition of what constitutes a better smoke is different from person to person and even if we agree on some parameters of evaluation the subjective graduation of them would be difficult to have any kind of consistency.
I would instead reformulate the question in this way: “What is the minimum amount of $ I should expect to pay for each one of the different type of pipes (briar, meerschaum, morta and so on) for having an acceptable smoke and what could I expect to gain if I spend more than that?”. This kind of question can be probably answered in a more subjective way as there are minimum costs in material and workmanship which need to be factored for having a decent smoking pipe. If someone is offering you a new briar or meerschaum for 5 $ you should expect there is some problem with it.
So to this type of question I would say you should budget 50 $ minimum for a briar pipe and 100-150 for a meerschaum or morta given the higher cost of their materials. Above that if you double or triple the budget you can have some improving in smoking quality, but not proportional to the increase in price, increased likelihood of not having issues (basically buying insurance in some way) and better cosmetic. Above that point that I would put at around 200$ for a briar and 300-400 $ for a meerschaum or morta you only buy the cosmetic but it is difficult the smoking by itself will improve too much, maybe a little bit for the briars.
By myself I prefer to buy close to the plateau of what I think I can expect in terms of improving smoking capabilities, to give an idea I got a Tom Spanu briar for 240$, a Baki Meerschaum for 315$ and a Il Duca morta for 425$, I love all of them, they are beautiful and all smoke very well with no issues. Could I have a similar quality smoke spending half of what I paid? Possibly but it would not have been guaranteed and the aesthetic could not have been so good (which for me is important, for others no). Could I have a better smoke spending double of what I spent? If anything at that price tag probably it would have been marginal with the difference being mainly cosmetic.
At the very end everyone has to decide what are the important things they are looking in a pipe and then I would suggest to go for the best they can afford in that category. So for example if you like corncob it is perfectly fine, I would just suggest to spend 10 $ for a Meerschaum corncob than 1$ for a chinese cob, most likely you will be satisfied from the Meerschaum one.
I belong to Brother Sasquatch Church of the Holy Briar thinking on this question. I agree with everything he said above.
My personal thought has always been that it's how the pipe was made that determines its smoking quality. A premium priced pipe generally will smoke better because more time and effort is put into producing it and the quality control is greater. Pipes which doesn't meet set standards are either destroyed or sold a seconds. That's what makes a Dunhill a Dunhill and a Yello Bole a Yello Bole.
My personal thought has always been that it's how the pipe was made that determines its smoking quality. A premium priced pipe generally will smoke better because more time and effort is put into producing it and the quality control is greater. Pipes which doesn't meet set standards are either destroyed or sold a seconds. That's what makes a Dunhill a Dunhill and a Yello Bole a Yello Bole.
Funny how everyone turns to Dunhills as being expensive, and they are more expensive in the English genre of pipes. But, there are pipes that cost a lot more, Eltang, S Bang, a few more Danish pipe makers, and almost all Japanese made pipes, are way above the Dunhill prices, but we tend to think of them in relation to smoking better. But, I really haven't found Dunhills to perform outrageously better. They are good, but I wasn't impressed with really much of anything about it in comparison to many of the other factory mades. I'm not bashing them. I agree that they are good, but not stellar, YMMV.
And so, over 100 replies in, we still come back to...
http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/do-expensive-pipes-really-smoke-better#post-561991
"cause that's the basic reality of it. Of course, you all knew this, but it didn't matter. It's just fun to add to the discussion.
http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/do-expensive-pipes-really-smoke-better#post-561991
"cause that's the basic reality of it. Of course, you all knew this, but it didn't matter. It's just fun to add to the discussion.
I'm not sure why posts have disappeared (Harris & Jon's posts are in my Outlook email notifications, but now they are gone. Kevin was trying to fix the Postimage issue, perhaps the missing posts are related.
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