What I find odd is that many of Marx's pipes are not rusticated but are smooth bowl finishes. Most of my Marxman's would pass as a standard everyday pipe with no hint that it is a Marxman. The shapes and finishes are just like any other pipe. These are all pre 54s and are NOS still in the boxes.
Our government has always been smarter than the public gives it credit for being.
In October of 1941 a Nazi submarine sank the USS Rueben James with heavy loss of life. Woody Guthrie wrote and recorded a hit song What Were Their Names (to the tune of the Wildwood Flower) but FDR did NOT ask for a declaration of war against Germany.
Only when the Japs snuck up on Pearl Harbor early one Sunday morning on December 7, 1941 did America go to war, and Hitler did FDR an incredible favor by declaring war on the USA a few days later.
America was at total war, and as unified as we will ever be.
We all know how it ended. In 1940 the USA almost made five million cars.
During the entire war the USA made 139 automobiles. It is wise not to bomb our Pearl Harbors.
After Pearl Harbor the government had a bureau determine that before the war America made about 30 million briar pipes each year, the average cost was about a dollar each, except for about 11 million Kaywoodies that started at $3.50 and ranged to $10.
The average pipe smoker bought three new pipes a year.
By 1945 most of the cheap pipes were mission briar (at best) or mountain laurel but the Kaywoodies and Marxman luxury pipes were always imported briar.
The government did not ration briar pipes. But there was a price freeze on both selling prices and labor costs, and a 95% excess profits tax. To preserve the newspapers and magazines the cost of newspaper advertisements were fully deductible and there was even a tax credit of some kind.
Coffee was rationed not so much because of lack of supplies from South America as hoarding caused by fear. Some unnamed genius required coffee merchants to open the sealed can at time of sale. Soon after coffee was taken off the ration list but we’ve been hooked on coffee since.
The next time you hear briar is all about the same, remember that within just a few years after the war all the Mission briar pipes were long gone.
After the war economists expected a return to hard times, but instead pent up demand drove a boom never before seen until a sharp, brief 1953 recession ended the party.
I think it was that recession that prompted Marx to sell out.
