Picked up an Alpha basket pipe in the late 80's in college along with a bag of some cherry aromatic and tins of 3 Nuns, Dunhill Ready Rubbed, and Dunhill 965, switched to Balkan Sobranie and Bengal Slices and remained there until they disappeared, and consoled myself with Dunhill Durbar, Butera Pelican, and McConnell Oriental. I have a decent collection of Ashton and Butera briars and meerschaums which after 20+ years of smoking are coming along nicely; one of the Bekler's has mostly retired due to being about as fully colored as it can get. Nowadays I mostly smoke orientals with the occasional digression into McConnell's Scottish Cake and Peretti's Cuban Mixture for certain meers.
Hello from Addicks, TX
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I was hoping I wouldn't have to dig it out from the closet...
The bowl used to be eggshell white, then one day I was out having a smoke and the wife called me in for a honey-do that wound up taking a few hours. When I got back outside I discovered that it had been drizzling for quite a while, the pipe was sitting in its pipe pillow in a puddle of water and the egg had turned brown, and it's remained like that ever since.
One of these days I really need to get another claw to color. yanik has a beautiful skeletonized egg and claw on ebay that's tempting me, but I'm hesitant to commit to another meer at this point, I've got a big bekler cavalier and another biggish Yanik that I'm already 15 years into, i need another meerschaum like I need a hole in my head.
Welcome. Ashtons and Buteras - any chance you used to hang out at Crofts pipe shop or it’s predecessor shop?
Most of my Ashtons came from Bob Gattis, the store owner, who was also a friend of Mike Butera.
Most of my Ashtons came from Bob Gattis, the store owner, who was also a friend of Mike Butera.
Yeah I was a regular there, at both Antique and later Croft's every Saturday, that's where I got the bulk of my pipes. Unfortunately the Briar Shoppe is just enough of an extra hike (and extra annoying to park) that I only make it there every decade or so. I haven't talked to Butera in years, we lost track of each other after Bob sold his shop. Mike made me a giant briar coloring bowl that is the secret sauce for coloring meers, its much faster than the standard meerschaum coloring bowls. I used it this morning on one of my Bekler/Butera meerschaums, the thread on the translucent meerschaums inspired me to put some effort into coloring it.
Pre-COVID, we had a monthly pipe club that met at Stogies on Westheimer. Mike usually came to those. Looks like they just started up again.
Houston Pipe Club Link
Houston Pipe Club Link
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