Rick Newcombe with 7 Questions on Radio Show of May 12, 2020

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Smoking a Pipe Right Now
Staff member
Nov 16, 2008
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5,641
St. Petersburg, FL
pipesmagazine.com
Our featured interview on The Pipes Magazine Radio Show tonight is with Rick Newcombe. Rick is a well-known author of several pipe books, and a prominent collector of Danish pipes, and vintage tobaccos. He has traveled the world visiting pipe makers, and learning their different techniques. He is also the founder and chairman of Creators Syndicate, which currently represents more than 200 writers and artists. This show is our first in a series of “Seven Questions for Seven Experts”. Over the course of seven weeks, we will ask seven prominent pipe collectors the same seven pipe related questions, and see how their answers compare.

rick-newcombe-1536x1024.jpg
 

renfield

Lifer
Oct 16, 2011
5,191
42,644
Kansas
Another interesting episode in an always enjoyable show.

Congratulations on 400 shows! The show adds dimension and a community feel to our sometimes isolated hobby. Always a quality broadcast and the amount of hard work and attention to detail shows.

Thanks for everything you do for our hobby.
 

georged

Lifer
Mar 7, 2013
6,101
16,735
Going to say something before an aggrieved veteran of the Open Airway War starts in...

Rick's first book, where the idea of making the airways of some pipes larger in diameter to improve their smoking performance, was a compilation of essays that were written for a club newsletter over a period of several years.

Because each essay was intended to be self-contained, whenever the airway question came up he re-explained the concept as a courtesy to readers who might be unfamiliar with it. (Also repeated was a clear caution that he was only writing about what HE had found to be true. That pipe smoking was practiced with enough variation that the benefits he'd discovered might not apply to others.)

An unintended result of mentioning those possible benefits of a larger-than-customary airway repeatedly in the same book was that the qualifiers were forgotten, and the repetition became the message. Human nature did the rest. Cries of, "We've been doing it wrong all along!" and "Bigger is better" were soon heard everywhere.

And the result of THAT was lots of kitchen table modifications by unpracticed hands. Meaning many pipes were either destroyed entirely, or their airways opened too far.

Then came the backlash. It was easiest, of course, to blame it all on Rick.

I was smoking and working on pipes long before all this happened, watched it unfold in realtime, and have had plenty of time to observe what came after.

Trust me when I say that you'd have to search a long time to find a pipe collector and smoker who was LESS inclined to tell people what to do, and MORE eager to help others find enjoyment in the hobby than Rick. He's a true gentleman in every way.

In hindsight, the entire drama could have been avoided by consolidating the first book's repeated mentions of airway opening, of course. A single chapter covering the subject would have sufficed. But who knew how many would "run" with the idea? No one could have guessed at the wild sales success of the book, either.

Anyway, there you go. Hopefully it's enough to pre-empt a fresh round of the Open Airway War here, in these comments, on this board. Rick deserves better than that. MUCH better.
 
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admin

Smoking a Pipe Right Now
Staff member
Nov 16, 2008
8,872
5,641
St. Petersburg, FL
pipesmagazine.com
Going to say something before an aggrieved veteran of the Open Airway War starts in...

Rick's first book, where the idea of making the airways of some pipes larger in diameter to improve their smoking performance, was a compilation of essays that were written for a club newsletter over a period of several years.

Because each essay was intended to be self-contained, whenever the airway question came up he re-explained the concept as a courtesy to readers who might be unfamiliar with it. (Also repeated was a clear caution that he was only writing about what HE had found to be true. That pipe smoking was practiced with enough variation that the benefits he'd discovered might not apply to others.)

An unintended result of mentioning those possible benefits of a larger-than-customary airway repeatedly in the same book was that the qualifiers were forgotten, and the repetition became the message. Human nature did the rest. Cries of, "We've been doing it wrong all along!" and "Bigger is better" were soon heard everywhere.

And the result of THAT was lots of kitchen table modifications by unpracticed hands. Meaning many pipes were either destroyed entirely, or their airways opened too far.

Then came the backlash. It was easiest, of course, to blame it all on Rick.

I was smoking and working on pipes long before all this happened, watched it unfold in realtime, and have had plenty of time to observe what came after.

Trust me when I say that you'd have to search a long time to find a pipe collector and smoker who was LESS inclined to tell people what to do, and MORE eager to help others find enjoyment in the hobby than Rick. He's a true gentleman in every way.

In hindsight, the entire drama could have been avoided by consolidating the first book's repeated mentions of airway opening, of course. A single chapter covering the subject would have sufficed. But who knew how many would "run" with the idea? No one could have guessed at the wild sales success of the book, either.

Anyway, there you go. Hopefully it's enough to pre-empt a fresh round of the Open Airway War here, in these comments, on this board. Rick deserves better than that. MUCH better.

Brian, jokingly said, "You should be able to drive a truck through it!" Hahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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kcghost

Lifer
May 6, 2011
15,138
25,716
77
Olathe, Kansas
This was the quintessential show of shows. Rick has very strongly held beliefs that he does not force upon people. He is a true gentleman and a pleasure to be around.
 
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