English vs. American Pipe Smoking History

[plateauguy]

Outstanding topic with great discussion!

BBB made a "pound pipe' called Good Luck

Not sure how I'd feel about a pipe called "Good Luck" - while some people might take it as a good sign, it says "caution" to me.
I have an Irish Second Prince. It's a great pipe, a little larger than I usually smoke, but the only flaw I found was a small blemish on the briar. Wish there was a way to date it.

 

[snagstangl]

Mr. Lowercase, no offense taken. Im sure of a few things, one being that there are people who know more and different things than I do. I had one of those pies marked "reject" that was great but I couldn't get the taste of mixture 79 out of it, so it went out.
Do you think perhaps my original question was to broad to answer?

 

[warren]

snagstangl: There was never a chance in hell that this thread would stay strictly on topic. Your question was nicely posed and certainly resulted in many an information packed response. I learned a good deal myself. Still, one comment or response that leaves an opening to an off topic observation and . . . well there's no corralling it back. It's gone, just enjoy the tangential swerve. It might even get back on topic, slim chance of that but it's happened before.

 

[snagstangl]

Warren, true, true. I think I wanted to make some artifical destinction between americans as consumers and british as smokers who smoke for reasons other than getting nicotine, but even before I wrote this I realized that is to narrow and limited, not to mention insists on classifying people and experiance I have no knowledge of.

 

[bigriggers01]

In what I suspect what might be a vain attempt to return the thread to topic :

Judging by the pipes I inherited from my grandfather, who unfortunately died in the mid 70's, Hardcastle's were the local equivalent of the cheap 'drugstore' pipe. He would buy all his from the local tobacconists and smoke them until the cake built up so that he couldn't fit any more baccy in. This is just outside Manchester, North West England, and I suspect that you would find a variety of different cheap pipes in different areas of the country.Today the cheapest pipes are clays off ebay or cobbs, for a genuine briar Parkers go fairly cheap (£20) in Manchester's last surviving (and fortunately booming) tobacconists.

 

[lazydog]

If one could view Alfred Hitchcocks film "The Skin Game", there are many Brit pipe smokers in view....Mostly depicting more well off landowners. 1931......

 

[finger]

I'm hoping this shows my lovely little nosewarmer Stonehaven. This was one of my first and still a great favourite

 

[finger]

nope. Struggling to put a pic in here, so changed my avatar to show it. Love my Stonehaven, and as far as I understand it this was the workers pipe, manual workers could hang on to them with no jaw ache. Cheap as chips

 

[phred]

That whole Colonial topic is pretty much over everybodies head anyway, that's why they keep arguing endlessly about it.
I went a bit overboard in my reply, and rambled a bit too far offtopic - you were right to call me out, and that's why I edited it so quickly, because I agreed with you about it being over-the-top.

Dang, and I missed it... :D The book I'm currently reading during my afternoon pipe on Fridays is Edward Said's "Culture and Imperialism".
Definitely enjoying the conversation on this thread.

 

[condorlover1]

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[condorlover1]

Well Misterlowercase these pictures are for you to enjoy. This is an Inderwicks reject or 'Second' pipe purchased in 1984 for the princely sum of Five Pounds Sterling. The shank shows the faint 'Inderwicks' name stamp along with a capital 'R' signifying it was a reject. The small blemishes were filled at one point but have long since worn away. I still use this pipe on odd occasions or when I just do not wish to take a fragile meerschaum into an environment where it could be damaged or the stem broken. The flat base has been used by me to cut up twist over the years which has spared many a work desk from my acts of casual vandalism! To put it into perspective in 1984 I was earning One Hundred Pounds Sterling a week, tobacco twist was Three Pound Sterling for a six inch length of twist. It cost another Seven Pounds to fill up my motorcycle with petrol for the week leaving me after paying board and lodging with the princely sum of Fifty Pounds Sterling that sat in my account with Drummonds Bank which I never touched. Then I got my first girlfriend and it was downhill all the way from there!

 

[doctorthoss]

Snagstangl --

Hmmm. If you intent is to try and draw a line between US/UK smokers with one group being more likely to smoke for nicotine or something similar, I'd say that's probably not going to be possible (I'm not sure at all that's exactly what you mean, but just in case….). I've been smoking for 20+ years now and grew up in a family of heavy smokers (the men generally smoked pipes, cigars AND cigarettes, depending on the circumstances). Until I started getting onto these message board around 2006 or so, I'd never even HEARD of pipe smokers who weren't driven by their nicotine addictions! Now, the flavors and the mechanical elements of the hobby as well as the relaxed and intoxicating experience of smoking a pipe played a large role as well (it's why we used pipes instead of cigarettes in the first place) but nicotine was most certainly the root of it all.

To me, at least, it seems as though the whole idea of pipe smoking as anything other than a nicotine habit is a relatively new development. I guess it's tied to a generation that seems in general to be more health-conscious than their forebears as well as a desire to treat pipe smoking as a "hobby" rather than an addition. When I read about guys who only smoke once or twice a week my first thought is, "Heck, if you don't need to smoke more than that, why bother at all?" I then remind myself that difference makes the world go 'round and such. It's just hard to get my head around the idea, I guess!

 

[condorlover1]

Doctorthoss I couldn't agree more. My Father was a pipe smoker as was my Grand Father on both sides of the family! I remember people saying to me in the late 80's in the office "Simon take the damned pipe out of your mouth when you answer the phone!" as it was always stuck in my mouth either lit or cold. I freely admit to being a devotee of the goddess of nicotine!

 

[snagstangl]

I thought i should bump this, and maybe re read it myself.

 

[danielplainview]

Well done snag. Bringing this one back was a good call.
I love how Sable casually mentioned he owns Hitchcock's pipes and doesn't post one pic.