So, I had been on the hunt for a GBD Chairman pipe for at least a couple of years. It is a matching briar pipe and stand cut from a single block, so the grain on the two pieces aligns exactly. A small button and divot are added to register the pieces of briar when put together. They’re very clunky looking pipes, but very cool because of the matched grain. They don’t turn up very often. I’ve toyed with commissioning a similar matching pipe and stand, but it wouldn’t be the same as getting a genuine GBD.
@MBSD Pipes had one available back in 2022. It was numbered 027. It was on my watchlist for a long time, but wasn’t exactly cheap. I hesitated for a long time and other pipes I wanted (in a price bracket easier to justify spending on) jumped the line on the buying list. When I was finally ready to pull the trigger on the Chairman, close to the end of 2022, someone else snagged it. He who hesitates is lost. This is the GBD Chairman 027 that I missed out on:
I would check eBay for a Chairman periodically, but always came up empty. That is, until recently. For whatever reason, I thought about a Chairman the other week and decided to do a search. Boom! I couldn’t believe my eyes. One appeared as if I wished it into being and I ended up getting it. It’s unsmoked, and I’m debating smoking it or not. If it had a box and sock, I would definitely leave it unsullied. Because it lacks any packaging, I might end up using it. I tried to clean up the badly oxidized stem, but was afraid of obliterating the fragile painted GBD logo and stayed away from it while sanding—I’d rather have the logo still intact over it missing on a completely black stem. Anyway, here’s the GBD Chairman 011 that I ended up getting:
This is the only other Chairman I’ve seen online, and it looks like it might have had a matching tamper: