I just doubled the size of my pipe collection for $40!

[newbroom]

Aristocob sells those Freehand stems for about $8. I bought four from him, but only used one on a cob. I can't remember if it came at 5/32 or if I drilled it out, but either way, it turned a Country Gent into a smoking machine! It sounds like that might be the type of combo you're after.

Well, I do have a Freehand cob, so I have a stem, however, I've yet to acquire a Gent. I know, I know, how can you say that you're a cob enthusiast w/o owning a Gent?

I say, "I don't want to cross every bridge my first year". I'll get there, eventually.

 

[plateauguy]

Can't go wrong with a cob. Looks like you won the jackpot!

 

[saltedplug]

Congratulations on all those cobs!
If I had the money and could do my pipe jones right, I'm thinking I'd need to spend about ~$50K, $21K for 30 $700 pipes, putting about 70% of artisan pipes within reach, and another $20K to buy pipes I wouldn't need at even higher prices. It's not hard for me to get caught up in the pipe culture and become fevered over pipes. I get that artisan pipes can be savored in the appreciation for shape and lines, etc. I've had pipe analyses published online.
But if I allow myself to get caught up in this culture, I spend money I don't have, and having spent that, want to spend more.
I was introduced to cobs as throw away pipes, something in which to smoke ghosting tobacco or only occasionally used for some other special purpose. But more importantly I was taught and readily agreed that real pipes were made from briar, that cobs couldn't be taken seriously; consequently I only smoked the two cobs I originally bought at odd intervals.
The long and short of it is that only this year have I smoked cobs daily. I've been reading on the forums for years that this or that pipe is "a good smoker," but this judgment has been become cliche. Moreover it's meaningless as most pipes smoke well, all the way from Grabows to Bangs. But it can perhaps be used to describe the smoking qualities of cobs given that so many pipe smokers won't take them seriously, and have, I think, like me, relegated them to the bottom of their rotation, if in fact they are part of their rotation at all.
For me their only drawback is their small capacity; but why is it difficult to adjust to the idea of a shorter smoke; and if I want to smoke more of a blend than the small chamber can accommodate, smoke another one or reload the first; or iteratively go from blend to blend? I think that cobs are the object of prejudice, and perhaps like most prejudices, irrational.
If a smoker prefers briars and has the discipline and money to only spend what he can afford, so much the better; but my experience is that pipe smokers spend too much on briars. It's called PAD.

 

[bernie2]

You make some good points 4nogginsmike
Being relatively new to this hobby, having started it only 4 months ago, I would always rate my new briar pipe purchases as "good smokers". I can tell you that it wasn't really until I picked up a bunch of $3 cob pipes that I truly understood what a "good smoker" was. These pipes, along with good tobacco, deliver a very nice smoking experience. I also find myself smoking cobs more now than the expensive group of briar's I have put together over the last 4 months.
Now that I've been exposed to cobs if I were to re-rate all of the new briars I purchased in the last 4 months I'd say that most are "fair" smokers that need some more breaking in time. The only two briar/wooden pipes I own that produce as nice of a smoke as my cobs are a 15 year old Savenelli that I picked up in February and a new Moretti Bog Oak Morta poker that arrived last week.

 

[jonasclark]

I'm liking that Cobbit! Nifty idea. Also: bending stems in nearly-boiling water? That's for the tip! MM switched over, for reasons I don't know, from stems that are bent to ones that have a sharp kink instead.