Richard Carleton Hacker

Log in

SmokingPipes.com Updates

New Cigars




PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

rmbittner

Lifer
Dec 12, 2012
2,759
1,994
His “The Christmas Pipe” and “The Ultimate Pipe Book” are, in my opinion, standards that should be in every pipesmoking reader’s library. While “TCP” is quite specialized, for anyone interested in these special-edition pipes, it’s invaluable. (“Rare Smoke,” which came later, consists of original content supplemented with a lot of content copied verbatim from “TUPB.”)

I worked at a Tinder Box when “TUPB” was released—and Hacker, who self-published, had a relationship with TB stores for distribution—so I’m partial to his books and his influence at that time. Unfortunately, he pretty much abandoned pipe writing once he decided to focus on luxury/lifestyle writing and a focus on cigars, spirits, etc.

Full disclosure: I was a proofreader at the time in my day job, and, disappointed with all the errors in the first edition of “TUPB,” I reached out to Hacker. He paid me (in a pipe and some tobacco!) to proofread the second edition.
 

J. B. Deller

Might Stick Around
Mar 17, 2023
52
87
His “The Christmas Pipe” and “The Ultimate Pipe Book” are, in my opinion, standards that should be in every pipesmoking reader’s library. While “TCP” is quite specialized, for anyone interested in these special-edition pipes, it’s invaluable. (“Rare Smoke,” which came later, consists of original content supplemented with a lot of content copied verbatim from “TUPB.”)

I worked at a Tinder Box when “TUPB” was released—and Hacker, who self-published, had a relationship with TB stores for distribution—so I’m partial to his books and his influence at that time. Unfortunately, he pretty much abandoned pipe writing once he decided to focus on luxury/lifestyle writing and a focus on cigars, spirits, etc.

Full disclosure: I was a proofreader at the time in my day job, and, disappointed with all the errors in the first edition of “TUPB,” I reached out to Hacker. He paid me (in a pipe and some tobacco!) to proofread the second edition.
Thanks. I’ll have to look for them. Do you still have that pipe? It must be a collectible now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: yanoJL

rmbittner

Lifer
Dec 12, 2012
2,759
1,994
I do! To be honest, Mr. Hacker was not all that generous! :) As I recall, the tobacco was a 4oz pouch of a TB aromatic. (Remember, I worked at a TB at the time.) And the pipe, which I very much enjoy—and which does hold great sentimental value—was a Sasieni Claret, essentially a second.
 

J. B. Deller

Might Stick Around
Mar 17, 2023
52
87
I do! To be honest, Mr. Hacker was not all that generous! :) As I recall, the tobacco was a 4oz pouch of a TB aromatic. (Remember, I worked at a TB at the time.) And the pipe, which I very much enjoy—and which does hold great sentimental value—was a Sasieni Claret, essentially a second.
I have heard of a RCH signature edition pipe. I’ve never seen one.
 

sablebrush52

The Bard Of Barlings
Jun 15, 2013
19,625
44,844
Southern Oregon
jrs457.wixsite.com
Hacker was a pioneer in writing about pipes and his interviews with Sasieni are unique. But, like a lot of pioneers, he got some things right and some things wrong, and current scholarship has long since passed him by. John Loring devoted a page to listing Hacker's errors regarding Dunhill pipes, and most of what he wrote about Barling was wrong.

In his defense, he was writing before the internet was anything like as robust as it is now, and a lot of material that has turned up in the succeeding years would not have been easily available to him, though huge amounts of information, that he clearly didn't consult, was, and still is, available at the NYPL and other libraries.

My chief problem with him is that he never says, "to the best of my knowledge" or "as far as I know". He states everything in absolutes. Among my favorites is his statement that Barling never published a catalog prior to their 1962 150th Anniversary edition, which isn't true. Close to a decade ago, I published a facsimile of Barling's pre WW1 catalog. So while I enjoyed Hacker's books and have kept my copies, I don't consider him an authoritative source.
 

J. B. Deller

Might Stick Around
Mar 17, 2023
52
87
Ah. Definitely not what I received. But he was really just starting out as a pipe pundit at that time; a signature pipe would have been at least a few years in the future.
I have heard good things about Sasieni, from RCH’s Rare Smoke, of course. Knowing a couple of things now, I’m surprised he didn’t have much on collectible Savinelli pipes, from what I could tell.
 

huntertrw

Lifer
Jul 23, 2014
5,221
5,341
The Lower Forty of Hill Country
Mr. Hacker wrote the following books on pipe-smoking:
The Ultimate Pipe Book (U.S. and British editions)
Die Kunst Pfeife zu Rauchen (translates as: The Art of Smoking a Pipe)
Das Han
dbuch Des Pfeifenrauchers (translates as The Pipe Smoker's Handbook)
Rare Smoke - The Ultimate Guide to Pipe Collecting
The Christmas Pipe - A Collector's Celebration of Pipe Smoking at Yuletide
Pipesmoking - A 21st Century Guide


I have all but the German books, enjoy his writing, and find them to be useful references.
 
  • Like
Reactions: yanoJL and warren

rmbittner

Lifer
Dec 12, 2012
2,759
1,994
I need to amend a statement in a previous post. It wasn’t “Rare Smoke” that included material from “TUPB“; it was “Pipesmoking: A 21st-Century Guide” that included previously published material.
 
  • Like
Reactions: yanoJL

huntertrw

Lifer
Jul 23, 2014
5,221
5,341
The Lower Forty of Hill Country
My chief problem with him is that he never says, "to the best of my knowledge" or "as far as I know". He states everything in absolutes.

Understand that in these books Mr. Hacker was, first, foremost, and always, a marketer of himself, thus (I suspect) the absolutes. To his everlasting credit, he was an ardent champion of pipe-smoking at a time when the hobby badly needed one.

I also believe that he was, at least in a small way, responsible for the acceptance of estate pipes in this country.
 
Last edited:

agnosticpipe

Lifer
Nov 3, 2013
3,332
3,413
In the sticks in Mississippi
Yes, in the 1980s and early 1990s his books and the pipe shops then were the only source of information about pipes and pipe smoking. I bought most of his books and met him once at a cigar dinner once in the early 90s and he was a very engaging and generous person to talk to. Now we have all the info and then some at our fingertips on the internet, so it's easy to forget his contributions, flawed or not to the art of pipe smoking.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Alejo R. and yanoJL

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
Widening the lens a little bit, it is and always has been extremely difficult to write about companies/corporations, or government agencies for that matter, so most of what is written is misleading if not downright bunk. Companies are competitive and therefore secretive. The inside workings of management is forever subject to litigation and therefore rarely accurately reported.

Most corporate or company histories are just extended public relations tracts. A good many of the exalted leaders have conspicuous flaws and worse.

This is a shame because much of public life is more than influenced by large organizations and even medium sized companies, and almost none of them have the slightest aspect of democratic order.

When we get to the work place, we are mostly in autocracies. Many attempt to be benign to a point, but they are autocracies nonetheless.

So if Hacker mostly talked folklore when he described the pipe and tobacco business, that was not great history or journalism, but it reflects the situation.
 

Pipes505

Lurker
Jul 14, 2023
30
70
New Mexico
I love his books. I have Rare Smoke and The Ultimate Pipe BooK. The latter is a first edition that RCH signed at Gus’s Smoke Shop (man, I loved that place). Beforewe all had the internet, his books were my pipe bibles. I must have memorized every page of TUPB!