Like others have said, I can really appreciate a perfect, angel hair, ruler straight grained pipe. They fascinate me, as it is hard to conceive of them as being produced by nature, and I can understand their high cost due to their scarcity. I also really like a full Birdseye grain pipe, they can be beautiful beyond measure, with Tom Eltang and S. Bang producing some of the finest examples I have ever seen. But neither of these pipes gives you the tactile hand feel of a craggy sandblast, which is why my most comforting and well smoked pipes tend to be my blasts. My collection has several examples of straight grained, Birdseye grained, flame/mixed grain pipes as well as several blasts and a couple carved pipes, my mood dictates which one tastes best, not the grain.
