Today I bought two used pipes that I’ll clean up ten minutes after they arrive.
$16 delivered Marxman
![IMG_5376.jpeg IMG_5376.jpeg](https://pipesmagazine.com/forums/data/attachments/259/259038-fb1a0cf2097a295de43e0e64a65b50eb.jpg)
$18 delivered Marxman
![IMG_5397.jpeg IMG_5397.jpeg](https://pipesmagazine.com/forums/data/attachments/259/259040-8ae3a9f6fc3faa6ec11763f359cb9df3.jpg)
When I’m through they’ll look like these, and be a source of pride for anyone to own and enjoy.
![IMG_5388.jpeg IMG_5388.jpeg](https://pipesmagazine.com/forums/data/attachments/259/259052-720ec0406c1b8ed9517234cd6288334c.jpg)
The first thing I’ll do the same as I did all the other large Marxman pipes I own is get out a bottle of Everclear (vodka also works, as does drugstore rubbing alcohol) and clean them up inside and outside. I use all the pipe cleaners it takes (sometimes a bunch) soaked in Everclear to clean the airway until they come out white. If the bore hole won’t pass a doubled pipe cleaner I drill it out. If there’s varnish (which is an abomination on any briar pipe) I take it all off using 4/0 steel wool. If the stem is oxidized I use Everclear and steel wool until it’s black again. If there’s lava on the bowl rim use steel wool until there’s bare briar.
Clean them up, first!
Then take a sharp pocket knife, and soak the bowl in Everclear. Take 100% of all the old carbon off, leaving bare briar. This can take several tries, but don’t stop until it’s gone!
Just a drop, not too much, of grapeseed oil on a paper towel will make any pipe glow for a few months. It’s temporary. You can’t hurt briar with grapeseed oil. Any excess towels off.
Use Obsidian oil on the clean rubber stem. It’s miraculous, but doesn’t last forever.
Now, after it’s all nice and pretty, if there’s a ghost Five Brothers, Kendall #7, or Brown Bogie or other industrial strength straight tobacco will chase away most ghosts. Maybe I’ll use cotton bolls soaked in Everclear overnight for several days to help evict the ghost. Most pipes are not badly ghosted anyway.
This Super Giant 12” WDC Wellington was varnished and caked up and looked like the devil had smoked it a hundred years in hell when I bought it.
It’s among my prettiest and best smokers now.
No matter the brand stamped on a pipe it’s a hunk of briar and a black rubber stem.
I think ancient Algerian briar like all the above pipes are fashioned from is best, but there never has been any
bad Mediterranean briar, it was all
good.
My last advice is try and buy the
largest used pipes on the market.
Until about fifty or sixty years ago the standard sized American pipes could be bought for fifty cents or a dollar. Those got rode hard and put away wet, and most have been tossed.
Really large pipes always cost ten times, or twenty times, or more what the cheapest cost. They likely smoked better when new, because the makers used their best briar, and the odds of them being carefully smoked and not abused are higher as we find them today.
And have fun.
The $34 I spent today on used pipes would not buy the cheapest new name brand pipe for sale, and when my trophies at last I lay down my kids can surely get $25 each for em’ if they advertise them on the forum.
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