No Name pipe

[fnord]

Kids:
Here's the latest on my "No-Name" beast. At the KC pipe show a very kind, older gentleman looked at it and said, "Nice pipe, buddy. It's a Charatan 2nd sold by Smoker's Haven back in the 50's and 60's."
I hadn't smoked the pipe before and it's been fired up several times since Kansas City. The only other Charatan I have is a Tinder Box Unique, beat to hell, thick walled Rhodesian that smokes like a dream and this "No-Name" comes in a very close second.
I'm a GBD guy.
I'm a Comoy guy.
Hell, I'll even drink Erik Nording's bathwater.
But, I need to get on top of this Charatan business. When seconds smoke this well I can only imagine how well the first line pipes smoke.
Fnord

 

[matchstickman]

When seconds smoke this well I can only imagine how well the first line pipes smoke.

It's been my experience that most "seconds" pipes smoke just like the first lines, at least for the most part. I have two Irish Seconds pipes, seconds pipes made by Peterson, and they smoke just as well as the old Peterson I used to have. The reason that they dub a pipe "Seconds", at least in most cases, is that there is some tiny flaw in the aesthetics of the briar that makes it unable to be sold as a first. The actual smoking dynamics of the pipes, such as draft hole placement and ease of draw, should be the same from the seconds to the firsts, or at least that's the case with my Irish Seconds. If anyone else here has any other experience with Seconds pipes, I'd like to hear how they differ from name brand finished products.