Look at this.

[collindow]

Look at this pipe. It's a beautiful example of a Kaywoodie.

However...the seller snipped off a portion of the stinger because he "could never understand what actual good they did anyway." Does anyone else find this terrible? The wanton destruction of pipes! For as long as 75 years, this pipe managed to keep itself whole. And then some fool just goes and SNIP. It makes my blood boil.

And it makes me sad. So very sad.

 

[papipeguy]

I'd do the same thing. To me, stingers are impediments. Its a grand looking pipe and I'm sure the smoking quality hasn't been impaired.

 

[hessenland]

I believe that to be quite the common practice among a few smokers. I think the stinger is essentially a useless piece of the pipe, yet I would not remove it.

 

[pstlpkr]

:crying:

However; I'm no fan of stingers.

But, I can understand your outrage.

 

[collindow]

The thing is pipeguy, is that, in my experience, they do essentially nothing positive or negative. Snipping 'em off is only hurting the value for the people such as myself who troll ebay all the time looking for Kaywoodies!

I pretty much refuse to purchase a pipe that has been mangled like this. I won't say that I completely refuse, but if it isn't an exceedingly rare, never-on-the-market pipe, then I'll pass it up. No matter how good the deal.

 

[pstlpkr]

PS Luxury Bulls Eye in my TRG White Ringed Volcano.

 

[collindow]

I think, Lawrence, you're in the wrong part of town!
Edit: Blast, the tricky devil shifted his posts about! I guess this post is superfluous then, and could well be deleted.

 

[fred]

Yes, some consider the Kaywoodie stinger to be a necessary part of the

Pipe... Both my Father and I cut them off, as we felt that all they did

was keep the smoke from cooling. This issue has been debated for longer

than I've been alive and will likely be going on after I've turned to dust.

 

[unclearthur]

I chop the miserable things off. Never did like any kind of metal doodad interfering with my smoke.

 

[collindow]

I seem to be outnumbered.

 

[pstlpkr]

Sorry about the deleted post.... My brain was ahead of my mouse.

I'll undelete it if you really want to see what I was smoking. :lol:

 

[unclearthur]

A serious collector like yourself Collin will want the pipe complete in every way. I how ever only buy Kaywoodies for the smoking pleasure and the stinger interferes with my pleasure. No one is dead wrong or absolutely right in the matter. All a matter of personal perspective.

 

[python]

I can see Lawrence's post :nana: , :lol:
Back on subject...
I also hate stingers, but I leave them on the pipe if they are not made to be removed. Although I want the pipe to smoke well, I also want it original. I have bought some pipes that people have cut off the stinger and I am fine with it, if it is cheap enough.
However, I will not permanently remove them myself. If they are removable, I will take them out and put them in a cigar box that I keep stuff in, so if I ever go to sell or trade it, it will be in tact.
I do understand your frustrations Collin, especially in the Kaywoodie market where a lot of the time the type of stinger is how you can tell how old the pipe is.

 

[hobie1dog]

All the ones on my Grandfathers pipes just pulled out, don't all of them do it that way? Why snip it, if they pull out?

 

[igloo]

Well I rip them out with vise grips , file them off ,and unscrew them . But if I were to ever get a pristine KW I might leave it alone . :laughat:

 

[kcvet67]

I can understand the desire of a collector to get pristine examples for his collection. As a smoker I view pipes first and foremost as tools to convert tobacco to smoke in as pleasing a way as is possible. For me, stingers just interfere with that process. I have quite a few pipes that are, IMO beautiful enough to qualify as legitimate works of art. But if they didn't smoke as nicely as they look, they'd be history.

 

[hauntedmyst]

I've removed nearly all the white dot's from my dunhills and filled them in with black putty because they never added any value.

 

[cortezattic]

Ironically, (and I never thought I'd be saying this), Haunted has a point. Folks, we're not talkin' Dunhill or Castello or Charatan here; it's a Kaywoodie. When I started smoking they cost $2.95, and drugstores across the nation had them mounted on cardboard displays behind the checkout counter. I can't see anyone getting his panties in a knot over a mutilated Kaywoodie -- at least not the Kaywoodie depicted on eBay. Modifying a utilitarian object to suit your pleasure doesn't qualify as "wanton destruction". It's not exactly like cropping the Mona Lisa with a razor blade.

 

[collindow]

I don't care about current Kaywoodies, I care about Kaywoodies from the good period in Kaywoodie's history: in the 1920s through about 1950-ish high-end Kaywoodies would sell for more than some current high-grade pipes.

For a period from the mid-50s to about 1970, quality declined somewhat, and modern Kaywoodies, while not bad, just aren't anything especial.

The pipe I linked to could have been produced anytime from the early 50s till the early 70s. Without the stinger ball, I couldn't date it any better than that, of course. Theoretically it could even be older than that, but the clover suggests it to be no more than 61 years of age. Probably. That period is fuzzy, unfortunately.
Sorry about the vehemence, I have fallen quite hard for aged Kaywoodie pipes.
Edit: HERE is my source for the statement about Kaywoodies being valued equally, or occasionally, higher than Dunhills or Sasenis.

 

[wolfscout]

I've got two white Kaywoodies with the non-functioning stingers. I'd not remove them. But to compare them to Dunhills in value? That website seems to be an editorial opinion. *shrugs* As someone else said... nothing right or wrong in this. IMO.