Pipe Hobby Waxing and Waning

[telescopes]

Nah. I don't wax.

I live in a desert. Getting hot and sweaty provides fungus an excellent opportunity to take hold. I might try sugaring... Lord, help me - but the idea of living with stubble afterwards isn't a positive either. At least the providers are women, lol. I never thought I would even consider this as a response, but fungal itch in 118 degree heat is no laughing matter either.

 

[Mike N]

That happens with all hobbies. I have collected vintage fishing reels and flies for almost 40 years, and started the Old Reel Collectors Association in 1990 (www.orcaonline.org) which now has over 650 dues-paying members in 8 countries but now find it difficult to find new things that interest me.

But I always enjoy looking at my tackle collection and have met many interesting friends across the country I still text with daily. That last part has become the most important thing to me and I see the same thing developing in my pipe collecting. I’ve smoked a pipe and collected for 30 years but only recently started attended pipe shows. I have met some great people in this hobby, too.

Just this past month, my line collection was featured in a new book and some of my fishing license badges are in this month’s Country Living magazine, so I have not lost the passion. See photos below.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I live in a desert. Getting hot and sweaty provides fungus an excellent opportunity to take hold. I might try sugaring... Lord, help me - but the idea of living with stubble afterwards isn't a positive either. At least the providers are women, lol. I never thought I would even consider this as a response, but fungal itch in 118 degree heat is no laughing matter either.

TMI, we don't need to hear about your landing strip, ha ha ha.

 

[ClinchKnot]

I don’t know if “hobby” is the right word for my activities relating to pipe smoking. It did/does involve research and experimentation trying to learn about the different tobacco blend families and equipment, but at the end of the day it is just me on the patio with a pipe and glass of water while I lurk forums for new interesting things to try.

Did “cellar” a bunch of tobacco (reads: stockpile) years ago as a hedge against inflation and regulation, and have bought and sold many pipes trying to find my favorites, and did spend a few years flipping estates on eBay to pay for it all, but still - it’s just me on the patio enjoying some respite from the workday and world of necessity.

Did back off of buying tobaccos and pipes in favor of other interests, and would pack it all away if I needed to for some reason, but the long term plan is to keep all the irreplaceable stuff I have. Is that a hobby? I don’t know. More like “happiness planning.”

The unexpected part of becoming a pipe smoker was that I made some real life friends along the way because of the mutual interest. Those I am holding onto even if we all quit.

 

[Oddball]

I hear the op 100%. I can be daily one week and nothing the next. I can look at my cellar and be proud one day, and ashamed the next..

If I had one pipe, and smoked and owned a single tin at a time, I would be a jim dandy happy pipe smoker.

I love it, but sometimes I can leave it. That's how all my hobbies and habits are aside from a select few things that are truly necessities.


I do all the same browsing. Looking for new or old pipes, limited edition or OOP blends, etc.. The hunt is part of the fun, even if I never get to that tin of Stokkeby LNF from 2007... I got it, didn't I.

Its a collectors hobby on one hand and a doers hobby on the other. Many things than lead to both of those things being hot or cold....

 

[kcghost]

This is kind of the way it goes with some pipe smokers. Some guys quit smoking in the summer and some quite smoking at other times of the year. You're still a Brother of the Briar.

 

[abecox]

I was at it for a few years through college, dropped it and only recently as of a few months ago did I get back into it, and I'm glad I did!

 

[Choatecav]

I agree with the comments that have said it really isn't a "hobby" with them. I have smoked a pipe on and off for many years and just started getting more regular with it about two years ago. I don't want to approach it as a hobby as I have a tendency to go "ass over teakettles" with my hobbies in the past and I end up burning myself out after several years. I would rather keep this as just something I do casually every day or so.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Hobbies can do that. Doesn't seem to happen to pipe smokers, just to the dilettantes or "hobbyists".

Pipe smoking is not a hobby. Well, it isn't for me and many others. Thing is, if one fellow starts a thread with that word, almost everyone picks up on it.

 

[occidentalist]

The trick is to conjoin pipe smoking with an activity you love. For instance, I'll smoke bowl while fishing or hanging with my bros and beating the ever-loving shit out of a migrant which will associate a positive feeling with smoking a pipe. Then I fall in love with pipe smoking all over again!

Edit: please don't crucify me. it was a Rambo reference.

 

[anotherbob]

This is more a discussion post. I’ve been smoking a pipe and in the hobby since 2014 to preface this.

Over the years I find myself waxing and waning in the hobby. Sometimes monthly. This can pertain to being on a cigar kick, or cooler weather creeping in and I find myself with a pipe in hand every evening, reading forums, chasing a pipe or tobacco, and reading related posts.

The pipe hobby can be obsessive. Scouring the sites for estate pipes, looking for vintage tobaccos, posting on forums etc. Almost like everything else doesn’t exists.

The question I pose is why the lull. Why do I feel a lull in the passion sometimes. Is it because I’m bored? Is it because the forum grows stale? Or is it because along with a couple other passions one peaks my interest at a certain time?

A lot of the codgers here will hate this post, that’s okay. I’m just curious if other pipe smokers feel this way. Does a similar pattern happen to you? If so what other passions creep in that seem to have you neglect the pipe smoking hobby?

Like many of you, the time and resources I have put into this hobby would make it seem like it’s here forever and all being. What’s gives? Why do I feel a lull sometimes?

Could it be the lack of shows, the lack of constant content?

Sure I will always enjoy smoking a pipe, but to a lot of us there is more to this hobby than partaking.

Curious to what the members think.

you can't appreciate something fully without it's absence.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

@jpmcwjr The problem is that even if it's not really a hobby, it is the closest term that best fits someone who spends a lot of time buying pipes and tobaccos, going to pipe shows, listening to podcasts, and coming on a forum or forums and talking about it and what they do with the stuff. Just calling it pipesmoking doesn't fit all of the extras that go along with what we do. I jiust roll my eyes when people who live on this forum and buy pipe stuff like its going out of style, and set on over 100lbs of tobaccos says "This isn't a hobby for me."

I say, no, it isn't quite like model building or stamp collecting, it's WAY MORE INVOLVED THAN A HOBBY. Mow, lets set the word play BS aside. We are pipers with a pipe hobby. they are words and we all know and understand what is meant when they are spoken on this pipe forum.

Oh, and John, I'm not directing this just at you. I wanted others to read over my shoulder to what I am saying.

 

[anotherbob]

The trick is to conjoin pipe smoking with an activity you love. For instance, I'll smoke bowl while fishing or hanging with my bros and beating the ever-loving shit out of a migrant which will associate a positive feeling with smoking a pipe. Then I fall in love with pipe smoking all over again!

Edit: please don't crucify me. it was a Rambo reference.

sure no crucifixion's, but our torture guy (Stan) is gonna show you how excruciating tickles can be.

 

[gord]

Like me, you probably have plenty pipes and tobacco. So need isn’t driving your acquisitions. If you’re interested in more than one thing, as you and I both are, it natural for the focus to shift occasionally. Nothing wrong with that at all.

Yeah, there is an ebb and flow to all interests. I think that's quite natural. However, when you go through the pipe and tobacco buying phase, get a raft of pipes and tobacco, smoke your brains out . . . . I think all of a sudden you get into a different territory. I think Cosmicfolkore said it best a few posts above.

I'm over the buying and trying phase, and am now smoking differently, learning about my individual pipes and favorite tobaccos and how to use them, and incorporating them into my daily routine as an enhancement to what I am doing. If it gets in the way of an activity, I don't use it. If it doesn't, fine. But there are some activities, for me mostly contemplative, that I would not want to be without a pipe.

I'm sure that other things will be coming down the pike with respect to all of this. And I'm looking forward to that. It's simply where I'm at, now.

What am I going to do with all that tobacco I bought, stockpiled and don't use, and pipes I bought I don't like? That's what friends are for! And if there is still a surplus, well, tastes can change.

 

[jpmcwjr]

@jpmcwjr The problem is that even if it's not really a hobby, it is the closest term that best fits someone who spends a lot of time buying pipes and tobaccos, going to pipe shows, listening to podcasts, and coming on a forum or forums and talking about it and what they do with the stuff. Just calling it pipesmoking doesn't fit all of the extras that go along with what we do. I jiust roll my eyes when people who live on this forum and buy pipe stuff like its going out of style, and set on over 100lbs of tobaccos says "This isn't a hobby for me."

I say, no, it isn't quite like model building or stamp collecting, it's WAY MORE INVOLVED THAN A HOBBY. Mow, lets set the word play BS aside. We are pipers with a pipe hobby. they are words and we all know and understand what is meant when they are spoken on this pipe forum.

Oh, and John, I'm not directing this just at you. I wanted others to read over my shoulder to what I am saying.

My point was only that it isn't a hobby for me or others. It clearly is a hobby for some, perhaps the majority of members here.

 

[Oddball]

Not to label anything too strongly but this is the very definition of pipe smoking for me:

Hobby:

noun

1. 1.
   an activity done regularly in one's leisure time for pleasure.

 

[gord]

I wonder if the passage of time might play a part in the waning of the hobby.

When I first started smoking a pipe 30+ years ago, I had a desire to try as many new blends as possible, and to purchase as many pipes as the budget would allow.

As time went on, I started feeling that the need to have more pipes was just not there. I came to the conclusion that the 15 or so pipes that I have (down from 50) suits me just fine. Of those 15, I smoke only about five on a regular basis. My blends are generally limited to just three, or so, unless a pipe-smoking friend suggests a new one. I suppose that I have become content with what I have.

That seems to be the direction I'm currently headed in. However, except for a brief 18 month or so stint of pipe smoking in University, I only returned to the activity within the last year. Still have a ways to go.

I certainly am spending more and more time with fewer pipes and smoking fewer blends.

 

[Trainpipeman]

That seems to be the direction I'm currently headed in. However, except for a brief 18 month or so stint of pipe smoking in University, I only returned to the activity within the last year. Still have a ways to go.

I certainly am spending more and more time with fewer pipes and smoking fewer blends.

I hear you, Gord. There gets to be a point, for me, where enough is enough.

 

[samb]

I sort of consider a hobby to be something that is constructive or creative yet also enjoyable and done in one’s leisure. Based off of that I don’t think my pipe smoking is any more a hobby than my consistent fitness routine; it’s just something I do. As for piping’s ebbs and flows, there are times when I’m in a higher mode of buying and learning and times when I just enjoy the very small collection I have and don’t worry about it.

 

[Richmond B. Funkenhouser]

@jpmcwjr The problem is that even if it's not really a hobby, it is the closest term that best fits someone who spends a lot of time buying pipes and tobaccos, going to pipe shows, listening to podcasts, and coming on a forum or forums and talking about it and what they do with the stuff. Just calling it pipesmoking doesn't fit all of the extras that go along with what we do. I jiust roll my eyes when people who live on this forum and buy pipe stuff like its going out of style, and set on over 100lbs of tobaccos says "This isn't a hobby for me."

I say, no, it isn't quite like model building or stamp collecting, it's WAY MORE INVOLVED THAN A HOBBY. Mow, lets set the word play BS aside. We are pipers with a pipe hobby. they are words and we all know and understand what is meant when they are spoken on this pipe forum.

Oh, and John, I'm not directing this just at you. I wanted others to read over my shoulder to what I am saying.

I agree with this, but do we have to be pipers?

Some people be like:

"SMOKING AIN'T A HOBBY, ITS A WAY OF LIFE!"

I used to think it was silly to call it a hobby, but it probably is a hobby for me. All the nerdy knowledge and variety proves it.

You might hoard one type of tobacco, but once you have over 10 blends hoarded you are a collector.

People on this forum have fixated on smoking, enough to join a fourm... and that's pretty weird, if you ask me