Let’s Solve Why Pipe Smoking is 1% of 1935

[warren]

There are smokers who thoroughly enjoy ritual and prefer a bit of mysticism, makes them comfortable. No harm there. Then there are those of use who smoke for the nicotine. Some of us even use the pipe to satisfy an oral fixation. There's no right or wrong way as long as the pipe and blend are found to satisfy the needs of the smoker, whatever those specific needs are. How or why a person turns to the pipe shouldn't be judged to harshly.

Me? I'm mostly a "stuff and puff", in it for the nicotine. Over the years here I've learned one thing for sure, different strokes for..."

 

[hoosierpipeguy]

The smartest man I ever knew, a machinist, pilot, raconteur, inventor, manufacturer, expert witness, alcoholic philosopher who chomped a Dutch Master President until he died one night in his sleep almost 90 years old, used to say the only thing men wanted was to live longer and have sex.

I’d argue Jack, what about the pursuit of money, and power, and pleasure?

He’d say those are all just ways to live longer and attract younger and prettier girls.

The first man I ever saw smoke a hundred dollar pipe, was K B Youngblood who built an A Frame cafe in Humansville in 1975 and made so much money he bought a Dairy Queen in Kansas City, Missouri on the JC Nichols Plaza.

I found out he owned the Dairy Queen when I took my new girlfriend, who was a part time model and daughter of the wealthiest banker in Southwest Missouri down to the Plaza and we ate at Dairy Queen.

K B Youngblood came over with his hundred dollar Nording and sat down and started talking to me and my girl and it turned out he knew her father, who’d made him the loan on his cafe in Humansville and he kept smoking that hundred dollar pipe.

Libby looked at him, and said where did you buy that pipe, and he said there’s a tobacco shop on the Plaza, and directed us to it.

On the way out there was a photo of the ribbon cutting for the Dairy Queen he showed us, and my girl said oh your wife is so pretty, and your children are just little darlings.


We walked to the tobacco shop, and I’d started with sixty dollars and only had a little more than fifty left.

My $100 size Nording only cost $35, because there’s a tiny dimple, only I can see, when I hold it up to a light.

View attachment 397675View attachment 397676
View attachment 397677
Libby picked out some tobacco she liked the smell of, and I was cutting it really close to broke, after I bought us ice cream at the Dairy Queen and we strolled by the fountains.

View attachment 397678

I learned a lot that day, I soon forgot.

One thing is a Danish pipe is a booger to break in, they don’t age their briar.

Time for a song.

14 Carat Mind

A lot of pipes were sold to impress a girl, you know?

I have to ask,did you and Libby do the hokey pokey before you dropped her off at home?

 

[sablebrush52]

The concern over the smoker’s health is a factor, I’ll admit.

But look at the incredible rise in the numbers of huge SUVs.

Correlation is not causation. Aside from that, people aren't particularly logical. Forbidden fruit remains a great motivator.

Pipe only smokers who never inhale live longer, not by much, but some little bit, than nonsmokers.

Debunked decades ago. Tobacco will kill you one way or another.

As far as why pipe smoking is so much reduced, fashions change. People can't smoke in their workplaces, they can't smoke at venues, in the movie theater, in the loo, so a cigarette fix in the great outdoors is much faster and more convenient than pulling out a pipe and smoking it.

 

[sablebrush52]

One thing is a Danish pipe is a booger to break in, they don’t age their briar.

Where in the depths of Hades did you hear that nonsense?

 

[quantumboy]

I think the many of you who have offered time as an answer are spot on. We live in a fast food society and we need all our stimuli NOW.

Cigarettes can provide that hit quicker and easier, but according to sources I found, cigarette sales have also been steadily decreasing the past 20 to 25 years. So it's not that pipe smokers now prefer cigarettes. There must be more to it...

Enter the whole vaping scene, which provides a quick nic hit with no waiting, no lighting, just push a button and inhale. That industry has grown quite steadily lately, but still can't account for the decrease in pipe smoking.

Then there is the whole health scare. Cigarette smoking has correctly been identified as a dangerous activity, so I am sure many quit all smoking for that reason.

After all that, I come back to the "it's just less convenient" story. In our fast paced society (heck, even we pipe and cigar smokers ask each other for advice on quick 20 minute smokes), we rarely have the time to pay attention to a pipe. Interesting thing to pontificate...

 

[VDL_Piper]

world tobacco production is about the same 6.5 million tons

If this number is accurate then all our supposition on smoking decline is a myth and the amount of smokers and their consumption is roughly static.

 

[Servant King]

1% of 1935 is not pipe smoking. It's 19.35.

Fun fact: I never got better than a C in any math class I ever took.

 

[Sobrbiker]

I hate the way nicotine makes me feel. The second I feel it, that’s my que to put the pipe down. Luckily I can get through 2-ish bowls before the “uh-oh feeling” creeps in.

You must like decaf espresso too?

 

[lraisch]

I have to disagree on the nicotine issue. If pipe smoking gave me a nicotine hit but no flavor, I would never bother. No doubt it's part of the whole experience, but not the essential factor.

There's no doubt that the health issues affected all tobacco consumption and I maintain the pipe smoking is at least less deleterious than other forms of tobacco use. The loss of places to smoke and the tobacconists to supply us as well as the reduction of mentors and examples such as relatives, professors and other role models we used to see smoking their pipes must also be considered.

In my case Mama is just fine with my pipes as long as I keep the latakia percentage down.

 

[Morbius]

When boomers were growing up they had no cool pipe smokers to emulate on TV or the movies. Let's face it. Pipe smokers were portrayed as fuddy duddies. For example: Fred MacMurray from My Three Sons.

Note, Steve McQueen in The Thomas Crowne Affair - that guy makes you want to be a cigar smoker!

Why couldn't we have had that?

 

[Briar Lee]

1% of 1935 is not pipe smoking. It's 19.35.

Fun fact: I never got better than a C in any math class I ever took.

1935 - over 30 million pipes produced USA - 11 million Kaywoodies

1965- Grabow’s best year- 3.6 million pipes

2025- Grabow last large producer- 200,000 pipes - Kaywoodie is a one man operation

It’s bit more than 5% of 60 years ago, and well less than 1% of 1935

Other fun facts-

Before WW2, the UK made 20 million pipes a year and France 40 million

In the depths of the Depression, R J Reynolds spent more than a million dollars a year advertising 15 cent cans of Prince Albert tobacco, mostly on radio. They created hillbilly music, what country music was called then. Prince Albert was the major sponsor of the Grand Ole Opry.

In the late forties, little Marxman spent $200,000 a year advertising in major magazines.

World population has increased about four times since 1935.

Tobacco produced is steady at about 6.5 million tons a year.

Those little 70 mm Camels and Chesterfield and Lucky Strikes used three pounds of 100% leaf tobacco per thousand in 1935. Today it’s two pounds per thousand and 15% or so is reconstituted scrap. Only American Spirit is full weight all leaf.

Lucky Strike ads were So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed, So Free and Easy on the Draw

1948

Sing one Merle Travis

 

[Auxsender]

You must like decaf espresso too?

LOL
Naw man, I love caffeine.
Just can’t do nic.

 

[RPK]

1% of 1935 is not pipe smoking. It's 19.35.

After reading all the responses I think that Servant King is the only one that actually answered the question.

 

[Waning Embers]

When boomers were growing up they had no cool pipe smokers to emulate on TV or the movies. Let's face it. Pipe smokers were portrayed as fuddy duddies. For example: Fred MacMurray from My Three Sons.

Note, Steve McQueen in The Thomas Crowne Affair - that guy makes you want to be a cigar smoker!

Why couldn't we have had that?

Many cite a cocaine addicted detective or midgets with hairy feet as their inspiration.

 

[telescopes]

Even rolling up a joint, old school style, is less likely to be seen out in public, let's say in a 420 lounge. People will be vaping, using wax, and all sorts of other ways to get their thc hit. Premade joints over roll-your-owns. Pipes are old school. So even while the number of people smoking cigarettes has declined so has the the number of pipe smokers; convenience drives the market place - whether it be tobacco or other its cousin in the 420 world. Our world is faster placed. More people are eating off of paper plates at home rather than bone china. Silverware - Where? Look at clothing. Compare a woman or man going out to the theater and a restaurant in the 50s-60s with how they dress today. Compare the quality of the clothing. Compare the accessories on the people. Its all changed.

 

[Briarcutter]

Even rolling up a joint, old school style, is less likely to be seen out in public, let's say in a 420 lounge. People will be vaping, using wax, and all sorts of other ways to get their thc hit. Premade joints over roll-your-owns. Pipes are old school. So even while the number of people smoking cigarettes has declined so has the the number of pipe smokers; convenience drives the market place - whether it be tobacco or other its cousin in the 420 world. Our world is faster placed. More people are eating off of paper plates at home rather than bone china. Silverware - Where? Look at clothing. Compare a woman or man going out to the theater and a restaurant in the 50s-60s with how they dress today. Compare the quality of the clothing. Compare the accessories on the people. Its all changed.

I don't think people even polish their shoes today. Just throw them away when too scuffed. But then again, most don't even wear leather shoes today.

 

[telescopes]

Reading this thread, I was reminded. Until recently I could smoke on the terrace of the golf club's swimming pool. And it turns out that a new anti-smoking law has just come out, which prohibits precisely this type of areas. So the next visit to the golf club, I will have to ask the waiters before lighting up. The only thing left to do is to smoke at home, or under an abandoned bridge.

Here's our bridge. I've actually been to this one in Rondo.

 

[FLDRD]

Here's our bridge. I've actually been to this one in Rondo.View attachment 397822

I think I've been to that one also.

 

[Gerald Boone]

I hate the way nicotine makes me feel. The second I feel it, that’s my que to put the pipe down. Luckily I can get through 2-ish bowls before the “uh-oh feeling” creeps in.

I agree, when I have a good nicotine hit it's more of a oh time to set the pipe down for awhile thing than a this is what I was looking for thing. If I go slow and set the pipe down and relight later I can have a great smoking session tasting great tobacco and it's just nice and peaceful.

 

[Gerald Boone]

The zeitgeist has definitely shifted. First tobacco in general is let us say less popular; no smoking in most restaurants, definitely no hotels, and depending on where to live, not in public. Second, of those of us who do enjoy tobacco, a quick bland nicotine hit without flavor is preferred by the masses. People rather eat hamburger instead of steak. You wonder why when steak is so much better. I'm glad I have my steak, my perique, my latakia, some good burley.