I love classic pips. Billiards, Lovats, Canadians. Also love shapes like bent apple and bulldogs. I used to be a fan of pokers but never found them to be comfortable
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Shapes
- Thread starter Hovannes
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I've often mused that it would be cool to be identified with a unique shaped pipe. A trademark of sorts like Basil Rathbone and his Calabash, or Anwar Sadat and his Prince, or Gen MacArthur and his Cob, and of course, Jacques Tati and his Apple
I am looking at a Dunhill 1962 Bruyere 902 shape. It has an inner tube. Please tell me what a 902 shape Dunhill is? I have never heard of it. Are they good smoking pipes?
Classic shapes appeal to me. Straight or bent, it depends on if the pipe speaks to me. However, I tend to lean at least 1/4 bent judging by my inventory. They tend to clench just so very right. These days smoking mostly MMs & Meers. 
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When it comes to pipe shapes, I'm totally promiscuous. I have a lot of different shapes. I don't have a cavalier and perhaps a few others, but anything can happen.
I have a better handle on what I don't like than on what I do.
I don't own only -- or even mainly -- billiards, but I agree that the straight billiard is the quintessence of the pipe's form. It strikes me as the archetype of which all other shapes are variations.
On the Castello 55 --
I am tempted to make the objective statement that it is (possibly) the ugliest pipe shape devised. But I will content myself in this context with the more subjective statement that I dislike it very much.
Shapes I have always loved include billiards, dublins, Danish freehands, and any of the long-shanks (lovats, canadians, etc.).
A shape which I did not anticipate liking is the bulldog, but I fell into a bent bulldog early on that turned out to be a uniquely good smoker, and I've wound up liking the smoking characteristics of many bulldogs since.
A shape which I have recently enjoyed smoking is the prince. I wound up with several of them, and although I'm not really drawn to them aesthetically, they've all wound up being stand-out pleasures to smoke. The squattier bowl is suited to moderate smokes, and allows me to look down into the bowl when lighting (which I like), and the longer stem -- while not so long as a church warden's -- offers a degree of those benefits (less arm movement when sitting), while remaining short enough to clench for short periods if I choose to (I rarely clench, but typically will for a couple minutes of each bowl).
Side Note:
I think that the visual aesthetics of a pipe are radically different when smoked than when displayed. Visual aesthetics when displayed could go to a variety of shapes; but, to me, visual aesthetics when smoked go to lovats/canadians.
Mostly classic shapes but I like Danish freehands as long as they are not too radical.
90% of my pipes are bent billiards. Not sure why I gravitated towards this shape, but I’d say it’s my favorite. The majority of them are either rusticated or sandblasted, which is easier to explain as I like the feel in my hand.
Nearly all of my pipes are straight. I have a few billiards and Canadians, but have recently gravitated toward pots. My recently purchased Peterson 606 has me obsessed with the psb finish, so I have two bent Petes with that rustication on the way - still pots, just bent. I'll see how it goes.
Classic British shapes for me. Military bits preferred. Thick walls with smaller chambers. The tobacco chamber dimensions are much more important in my mind Than the shape.
I don’t like Danish freehand shapes.
I don’t like Danish freehand shapes.
I enjoyed learning the traditional shapes, fully understanding that many pipes, both factory pipes and artisanal pipes, often merge two or more shapes in one pipe. The named shapes are just a sort of guide, a neighborhood of a shape and not a categorical single thing. A shape I would have called a brandy was listed by the carver as an apple, so I went with that. When does a billiard become a stack? When does an apple become a ball? Diplomat is a pretty subtle shape and can drift over into prince category or author fairly easily. Is a yacht, with its slightly bent stem and oval shank a sub-shape of the Dublin or a separate thing? I don't really think shape designations have to be categorical. I don't get anal about them. But they are useful names that help visualize particular pipes, with the understanding that they are not categorical. I'm interested that some online sites don't even list shapes in their specifications, figuring, I guess, that they will show the photo and let the customers decide. And of course, some sites identify shapes with completely wrong names, calling a bulldog a Lovat, or a tomato a stack. It's the human condition.
