Hello! 'Tao' pipe info?

[theoriginaldig]

Hello from Sheffield, England -
I was a keen pipe smoker up until a few years ago, when health issues made me very reluctantly put aside my pipes and tobacco, meaning that I now have various inactive pipes and tins of unsmoked blends. I've always been an admirer of Jens 'Tao' Nielsen's pipes, and I managed some years ago to snag one of them on a well-known auction site. I never smoked it myself, as the bowl was a bit bigger than I like, plus it seemed a shame actually to use the pipe, as it's certainly the fanciest that I own! It's somewhat unusual for a Tao, I think, in that it is quite big, and the grading is given by a '7' rather than using the letters that seem to be his standard system. Here is a link to some photos of the pipe - photos of the pipe on Google drive. It's not a great deal of use to me now, so I'm tempted to sell it, but I'm not sure what sort of value it has, nor what would be the best way of selling it. Any advice or information about the pipe very gratefully received!
All best,

Dominic

 

[mikethompson]

Hello Dominic, welcome to the forums. That looks like a very nice pipe indeed. A good way to move some pipes is to contact member 'pipestud' who runs an ebay store. I've never used him personally but comes highly recommended.

 

[briarblues]

theoriginaldig, if you check smokingpipes.com, they have a new Tao with silver band. SRP is $3400.00. The "normal" rule of thumb is an estate pipe sells for about 50% of SRP. YMMV. As yours is large, I'd say you could be in the + $1000.00 US range, and to the right buyer, even more.
Regards

Michael J. Glukler

 

[dmcmtk]

PM sent.

 

[theoriginaldig]

Blimey! Many thanks for the responses. It's certainly a lovely pipe. I'll get in touch with that Mr Pipestud; and many thanks for PM, Dave.

 

[npod]

Sorry, I can’t the pictures to load correctly here. It’s a nice Tao Pipe. Representative of his earlier work.

 

[theoriginaldig]

I did wonder if it was an early example: it's quite different to the shorter stubby pipes with the silver bands that I've seen elsewhere, and which I always coveted!