Ruminations on Extra Large Pipes
- Thread starter Briar Lee
- Start date
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Smoking a C size Marxman Benchmade Flatside I’m convinced an extra large Pre 54 Algerian top grade briar pipe cannot be equalled ever again for smoking quality.
They’ll just ruin you for something less.
With a meerschaum there’s no debate there are different quality grades and bigger smokes cooler.
It’s also true of briar.
Combustion temperature doesn't change due to material or the size of the pipe. Cooler smoking is up to the technique of the smoker not the design or engineering of the pipe. I just can't close my hands enough anymore to safely hold small pipes but excluding smoking duration, the large ones smoke no differently than the small ones.
This Knute is a good chunk of briar. Not big enough to register detectable gravitational waves, but...
Looks like the Big Boys won't be getting in until Monday or so.
Yes, I’ve done ruminated that on paper there’s no scientific explanation for why I smoke a large pipe cooler than a small one.
But it’s still so.
To divert us while we wait, imagine if you will it’s 1946 at 27 W 24th St and Robert Marx tools up in his brand new Packard convertible and a doorman dispatches a young boy to go park it, with stern warnings not to take too long coming back.
The old German foreman has a bag of enormous platuex briar blocks dated 1935 that have just come in from the docks.
Why are some made into $15 Big Boys and others $25 400s and others $10 Benchmade or Jumbo C size?
$5 Horse Head 55 grams
$10 Benchmade Flatside C 60 grams
$15 Big Boy 70 grams
$25 400 95 grams
That gold band didn’t cost more than a dollar.
What are the rules of building big Marxman extra large pipes?
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From all I’ve read about pre WW2 Algerian grade briar it had to be cured and seasoned and aged much longer than lesser briar, and there Marx had an advantage.
When Mussolini joined Hitler in June 1940 to plunder France, the supply of genuine Algerian briar shut down tighter than a liquor store in a Baptist town on Sunday morning.
But all Marx used was Algerian. He likely had several floors of his factory full of it aging. During 1937 he could have bought a freighter full during a bad recession within a Depression cheaply.
Like Lees, the cheapest pipes Marx made are the scarcest today. But my $2.50 grade Selected Grain is a large pipe, at 45 grams, .775” bore, and it required a big chunk of briar to carve it from.
My theory is that Marx had very close to the same product cost in a $2.50 pipe as a $25 pipe.
I hope Marx gave Tom Howard and his son a tour.
The entire Marx factory was an overgrown custom shop.
When Mussolini joined Hitler in June 1940 to plunder France, the supply of genuine Algerian briar shut down tighter than a liquor store in a Baptist town on Sunday morning.
But all Marx used was Algerian. He likely had several floors of his factory full of it aging. During 1937 he could have bought a freighter full during a bad recession within a Depression cheaply.
Like Lees, the cheapest pipes Marx made are the scarcest today. But my $2.50 grade Selected Grain is a large pipe, at 45 grams, .775” bore, and it required a big chunk of briar to carve it from.
My theory is that Marx had very close to the same product cost in a $2.50 pipe as a $25 pipe.
I hope Marx gave Tom Howard and his son a tour.
The entire Marx factory was an overgrown custom shop.
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Marx had to be able to charm old men into loaning him money.
Old men in the Great Depression in New York City, lent him enough he owned or controlled a smaller skyscraper steel and glass and concrete tower in the Flatiron District in sight of Madison Square Gardens.
Things do not really change much about business enterprises in New York City.
Marx made his pipes in the damned Capital City of the World, the Big Apple, Downtown, his building providing the shade for the concrete canyons of 24th Street.
And he got slick away with it and sold out before he was 50 and the buyer kept him on until he was an old, old man.
Marx did not depreciate his brand selling seconds. He sold seconds but under names nobody could recognize.
Here is a Westchester that I bought NOS from the estate of a Westchester County New York car dealer parts manager who died with a storage unit full of NOS car parts.
It came in a red Marxman box and it’s a Marxman except in name. It was stained red umber.
He also had a contract with the American Automobile Association.
His pipes are under appreciated today.
It’s really a shame nobody ever wrote a book about Robert Marx like they did Tracy Mincer and Custombilt.
Old men in the Great Depression in New York City, lent him enough he owned or controlled a smaller skyscraper steel and glass and concrete tower in the Flatiron District in sight of Madison Square Gardens.
Things do not really change much about business enterprises in New York City.
Marx made his pipes in the damned Capital City of the World, the Big Apple, Downtown, his building providing the shade for the concrete canyons of 24th Street.
And he got slick away with it and sold out before he was 50 and the buyer kept him on until he was an old, old man.
Marx did not depreciate his brand selling seconds. He sold seconds but under names nobody could recognize.
Here is a Westchester that I bought NOS from the estate of a Westchester County New York car dealer parts manager who died with a storage unit full of NOS car parts.
It came in a red Marxman box and it’s a Marxman except in name. It was stained red umber.
He also had a contract with the American Automobile Association.
His pipes are under appreciated today.
It’s really a shame nobody ever wrote a book about Robert Marx like they did Tracy Mincer and Custombilt.
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I feel like the custombuilt ridiculousness was mostly created by a few collectors over the last 5 or 6 years.
I’m sitting here trying to count the growth rings using a dental pick on top of my Westchester and quit at a hundred, maybe two thirds across the bowl.
Geezus. This was a “gimmie pipe” from a big Westchester New York car dealership. It likely cost the dealer fifty cents to a dollar.
Marx used the oldest, best grade of briar the world will ever see.
It’s still over there in Algeria but the Frenchmen who graded it are all dust.
Any Pre 54 Marxman will just ruin you for pipes made of lesser quality briar.
This one needed no break in.
Asbestos could not smoke cooler.
No Cuban cigar ever tasted as good as a flake of Luxury Navy Flake in this thing.
The only reason a pipe addict doesn’t only smoke very high grade Algerian briar is they haven't yet.
Geezus. This was a “gimmie pipe” from a big Westchester New York car dealership. It likely cost the dealer fifty cents to a dollar.
Marx used the oldest, best grade of briar the world will ever see.
It’s still over there in Algeria but the Frenchmen who graded it are all dust.
Any Pre 54 Marxman will just ruin you for pipes made of lesser quality briar.
This one needed no break in.
Asbestos could not smoke cooler.
No Cuban cigar ever tasted as good as a flake of Luxury Navy Flake in this thing.
The only reason a pipe addict doesn’t only smoke very high grade Algerian briar is they haven't yet.
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I think someone has pulled a ruse or a practical joke. Hacked up rustication like that isn't done on high quality briar and artisan pipes not to mention factory estates of the likes of Dunhill and others can be had for much less than some of the Marxman pipes. None of the pipes I've posted in this thread cost more than $200. Even this big French pipe was only $48.
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What a gorgeous, beautiful, perfect, flawless, unusual pipe!
It was likely made from Algerian briar.
If I was the person at the American Automobile Association that gave away this Marxman standard size Dublin free with a membership I’d been ashamed to give it away.
I could not make up a lie about how well this pipe smokes that could describe how delicious a smoker it is.
It’s turned from light tan to ruddy brown in a dozen smokes and it’s going to get redder and darker yet.
What I claim for Marxman pipes is on some examples like this Marxman AAA they used briar so old the growth rings are impossible to count.
Every one was a better smoker than I could imagine any pipe being, some more incredible and miraculous than others,,,,.none even merely excellent.
That AAA Dublin used briar that grew for centuries.
Most are only pretty to smoke.
Some few were among the best looking pipes ever made.
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