Luciano are good Italian pipes, "hand finished" and quite various in size, weight, and shapes and designs. I took a fancy to them two or three years ago and without calculating got in on lower prices. I bought a blast straight saddle stem billiard and later a smooth author, both of which would go for about $150 today. I bought them for a little more than half that. I've been well pleased, both with the pipes' smoking characteristics and with the notion that they have increased in value. I've smoked them so it's not a question of making money on resale, but rather that they'd cost plenty more today. Some pipes stay pretty steady on prices corrected for inflation, and others seem to trend up, or down, and there's no telling. Stanwell in Denmark used to be more expensive than it is now, but the Italian-made pipes, especially as sold through PC, are excellent values, and still excellent smokers, to me. I'm not astute enough to know how specific pipes are trending, but you sometimes have gotten a real bargain -- and sometimes not -- in retrospect.
