Some of my yachtsmen came from Poland, Croatia, and Australia.
Number Of Pipes Being Listed On eBay Is Exploding
- Thread starter sablebrush52
- Start date
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
Site Sponsors
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor
- Status
Older generation going away, and new generation not picking up the pipes?
I think that there are just more pipes in circulation. New pipes get made everyday. How often do you throw one away?
It's a nightmare my friend. I've had quite a bit of luck trawling around the Czech Republic and I would really recommend you take a look as well as the Baltic States.
That would cover only listings where the word "briar" is specifically used in the description. A lot of listings don't include that word, including listings for briar pipes.
I used my basic search, one that I've used for the past 12 years, as it covered all pipes under the tobacciana umbrella. So whatever is going on is a huge explosion.
I noticed this increase when I went onto eBay to look at Peterson pipes while talking with jiminks. Normally there are between 200 and 300 Petersons listed on any given day, sometimes more. Here's where it is today:
A lot of these are brand new stock
That's probably part of it as well.
That's part of it. Britwood has dropped about 30% from 2016 levels. I was aware early last year that several major collections of high end pipes were going to become available as their owners had either died, or decided to sell them because they could no longer smoke them for health reasons.
As a side note, those cellars are going to be coming to market at some point as well.
Like many of you, I only make specialized searches, and hadn't done the general search for many months, so I wasn't aware of the dramatic increase.
I also suspect that more people are focusing on buying tobaccos before the guillotine drops in 2021, and funding that process by selling off pipes.
+1
Pipes will be available long after tobaccos are history.
The bad thing about that though is that those selling weed pipes will list under that category as a smokescreen.
I had the same thought. There is a huge amount of head shop listings however.
If eBay wants to save the world why don’t they address this instead of focusing on tinned tobacco listings?
Also, for fun, I ran a meerschaum search and there were over 6,200 meerschaum listings.
The good thing about it was that I was able to make some very very good buys on mislisted pipes over the years. I don't have the time to, much less the interest in, combing eBay like I once did.
You can still catch listings like that from time to time.?
Thinking about this a bit more, the results of my "basic" search used to be a bit cleaner before the code monkeys at eBay "improved" the search engine a few years ago. There was far less errata in it. But that doesn't account for anything close to the surge since late last year.
Maybe people are getting in their tax returns but still don't have enough for that S. Bang they wanted and are selling off the rest of their pipes to compensate? 
Perhaps it is partly the increased awareness of this market so that pipes that would have been discarded or ended up in yard sales and flea markets get offered on eBay and other online sites.
Aging out by illness, retirement, quitting smoking, as well as death have freed up many pipes to this market.
The generational interest in tobacco pipes is less present than in earlier generations; there is no one to inherit the pipes, both because fewer people smoke pipes and people have fewer children to inherit them. At the same time, there is the above-mentioned awareness of online ways to turn the pipes into money.
On another thread, I felt I was among those accused of idle speculation. So, there I go again.
Aging out by illness, retirement, quitting smoking, as well as death have freed up many pipes to this market.
The generational interest in tobacco pipes is less present than in earlier generations; there is no one to inherit the pipes, both because fewer people smoke pipes and people have fewer children to inherit them. At the same time, there is the above-mentioned awareness of online ways to turn the pipes into money.
On another thread, I felt I was among those accused of idle speculation. So, there I go again.
Grandpas are dying and their tobacco-free grandchildren want to capitalise on their forefathers' collections so that they can buy pot.
Those meerschaums from Missouri are worth their weight.
Many good explanations above already and just wish to add that eBay's search engine might also have changed during the years. When I listed some pipes on German eBay.de for worldwide sale, I often had much difficulty finding these to appear on the US eBay.com. It may have to do with the text in listing, translation, search keywords but also whether using paypal, type of worldwide shipping, etc. Perhaps some of these search/listing criterias have changed. I don't know.
- Status