Show Off Your Kaywoodie Pipes
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I'm a PeteGeek though and through, but that is a gorgeous pipe.I hear you. The enablers on this site and many others are a bad influence. Your campus inspired me to look for a campus pipe at Capitaland yesterday. Low and behold I found one. So in essence you enabled me
Someone definitely mislabeled this pipe. It really should have been a Super Grain pipe/block. 360 degrees of straight grain in the natural stain finish View attachment 316162View attachment 316163View attachment 316164
Always goad to help!I hear you. The enablers on this site and many others are a bad influence. Your campus inspired me to look for a campus pipe at Capitaland yesterday. Low and behold I found one. So in essence you enabled me
Someone definitely mislabeled this pipe. It really should have been a Super Grain pipe/block. 360 degrees of straight grain in the natural stain finish View attachment 316162View attachment 316163View attachment 316164
Very cool! Very nice shape and the long saddle stems are actually great clenchers.
I really hope Nathan gets some 40’s or similar cranked out one of these days.
He was so busy in the weeks leading up to the show. The pipes, organizing the show and running the business. I agree with the 40’s and cannot wait to see what else he comes up with or brings back!
Of my 10 pipes in regular rotation, four are Kaywoodies. The top three came from my dad and I believe he purchased them in the late 1950s. The bottom one I purchased from the Greywoodie on-line store in 2019. My dad probably liked Kaywoodies more than any other brand of drugstore pipe, which was the only kind he bought after he moved up to Alaska after WW2. All smoke great.
Number one is a #33 Superburl. I believe this was his favorite pipe based on its heavy use but very little stem chatter. Dad worked outdoors every day and all of his work pipe stems were heavily worn from clenching while his hands were busy. But not this one. This one is probably the one I remember him smoking in the living room after dinner or when I sat in his lap as a little kid and watched him blow smoke rings. Between my dad's and my use, it’s been smoked about 50 years.
Number two is a series “600” in shape 95B. I found the stummel in a box of tools and junk in my dad’s house last year. I guess he lost or broke the stem and saved the stummel, just in case. It was heavily used, like all of his pipes, but cleaned up nicely. Originally the wood on the low-end 500 and 600 series were varnished, but the coating had worn off this pipe with years of use. I found a very cheap estate 95B on Ebay and bought it for the stem; the stummel was donated to the local pipe shop. A little bit of filing and sanding on the replacement stem and this nice little pot was ready to smoke again after what I guess was a 40 or 50 year slumber.
Number three is a 12B in “Natural Burl.” The finish was introduced at about the same time Kaywoodie introduced their White Coral line. It has a nice grip and is interesting to look at, but it was obviously treated as a work pipe by dad and the bottom of the stem near the button has a small hole chewed right through it. After a lot of cleaning, it still smokes great. This is another pipe with around 50 years of smoking on it. One of these days the stem will get the black superglue treatment.
Number four is a modern Kaywoodie in the Standard line. It’s got no shape stamp but is virtually identical in dimensions to the 12B. It has a push-in vulcanite stem, but I added an aluminum spacer and re-stained and polished the wood to better match dad’s old pipes. It’s a fine smoker and very light and a welcome addition to the collection.
I’ll have to post a detailed comparison between the late-50s 12B and the modern one, made 60 years later, but for now I just wanted to get a picture of my little collection of Kaywoodies posted to this thread. Thanks for reading!
Number one is a #33 Superburl. I believe this was his favorite pipe based on its heavy use but very little stem chatter. Dad worked outdoors every day and all of his work pipe stems were heavily worn from clenching while his hands were busy. But not this one. This one is probably the one I remember him smoking in the living room after dinner or when I sat in his lap as a little kid and watched him blow smoke rings. Between my dad's and my use, it’s been smoked about 50 years.
Number two is a series “600” in shape 95B. I found the stummel in a box of tools and junk in my dad’s house last year. I guess he lost or broke the stem and saved the stummel, just in case. It was heavily used, like all of his pipes, but cleaned up nicely. Originally the wood on the low-end 500 and 600 series were varnished, but the coating had worn off this pipe with years of use. I found a very cheap estate 95B on Ebay and bought it for the stem; the stummel was donated to the local pipe shop. A little bit of filing and sanding on the replacement stem and this nice little pot was ready to smoke again after what I guess was a 40 or 50 year slumber.
Number three is a 12B in “Natural Burl.” The finish was introduced at about the same time Kaywoodie introduced their White Coral line. It has a nice grip and is interesting to look at, but it was obviously treated as a work pipe by dad and the bottom of the stem near the button has a small hole chewed right through it. After a lot of cleaning, it still smokes great. This is another pipe with around 50 years of smoking on it. One of these days the stem will get the black superglue treatment.
Number four is a modern Kaywoodie in the Standard line. It’s got no shape stamp but is virtually identical in dimensions to the 12B. It has a push-in vulcanite stem, but I added an aluminum spacer and re-stained and polished the wood to better match dad’s old pipes. It’s a fine smoker and very light and a welcome addition to the collection.
I’ll have to post a detailed comparison between the late-50s 12B and the modern one, made 60 years later, but for now I just wanted to get a picture of my little collection of Kaywoodies posted to this thread. Thanks for reading!
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I don't have any Kaywoodies.
Any pipe with a back story is interesting.
And to have 3 from your Dad which you smoke regularly is a great story.
Thanks for sharing
Thanks, I do love the process of trying to figure out how some antique item got to where it is in current times. Probably a lot of stuff just sits around until a relative puts it on Ebay. Some items might have great stories if only the owners would have thought anyone down the line would care to know, and would have taken the time to write about it. One of the reasons I signed up to this web site was to document some of these things, with the thought that some distant relatives might find these posts of some interest in the future. Probably not, but you never know - the breadcrumbs are dropped all the same.
How I came to own dad’s collection is a funny story. Dad and I were walking one of his dogs during mid-1990s. It was summer and I was smoking a cigar to keep the mosquitos at bay. Dad mentioned the cigar smelled good and that he wished he knew what had happened to his old pipes. He regularly gave up smoking for Lent and one year, probably around 1976, he couldn’t find them after the 40 day fasting period. He searched all over but never could find where they’d been placed. He had a few less popular pipes as back-ups still tucked away, but his favorites were gone and he didn’t feel like breaking in a new batch. Since we kids were all in our teens by then, he decided it was probably best not to be smoking around us anyway. And that was the unceremonious end of dad’s 40 years of pipe smoking.
When we got home from the walk, I asked mom if she had any idea where dad’s old pipes might be, and without a pause she said, “Look for a brown paper bag in the credenza.” I went to the credenza in the dining room where we kept the fancy dishes and tablecloths for special occasions and sure enough, there was an old brown paper shopping bag which had a pipe holder with five pipes and a glass tobacco container that had a handful of old cigars – the cheap ones men gave out after the birth of a kid - one even had a wrapper that said “It’s a boy.” The look on dad’s face when I pulled out the pipes was precious. The 20 year old mystery was solved: Dad hadn’t misplaced the pipes, mom hid them!
Dad said he wasn’t interested in starting up smoking again and they were mine if I wanted them. I used to smoke a couple cigars a week back then but didn’t always want to light up a stogie that might last over an hour. The pipes were a great addition to my cigars and after he passed away, a welcome reminder of my dad.
How I came to own dad’s collection is a funny story. Dad and I were walking one of his dogs during mid-1990s. It was summer and I was smoking a cigar to keep the mosquitos at bay. Dad mentioned the cigar smelled good and that he wished he knew what had happened to his old pipes. He regularly gave up smoking for Lent and one year, probably around 1976, he couldn’t find them after the 40 day fasting period. He searched all over but never could find where they’d been placed. He had a few less popular pipes as back-ups still tucked away, but his favorites were gone and he didn’t feel like breaking in a new batch. Since we kids were all in our teens by then, he decided it was probably best not to be smoking around us anyway. And that was the unceremonious end of dad’s 40 years of pipe smoking.
When we got home from the walk, I asked mom if she had any idea where dad’s old pipes might be, and without a pause she said, “Look for a brown paper bag in the credenza.” I went to the credenza in the dining room where we kept the fancy dishes and tablecloths for special occasions and sure enough, there was an old brown paper shopping bag which had a pipe holder with five pipes and a glass tobacco container that had a handful of old cigars – the cheap ones men gave out after the birth of a kid - one even had a wrapper that said “It’s a boy.” The look on dad’s face when I pulled out the pipes was precious. The 20 year old mystery was solved: Dad hadn’t misplaced the pipes, mom hid them!
Dad said he wasn’t interested in starting up smoking again and they were mine if I wanted them. I used to smoke a couple cigars a week back then but didn’t always want to light up a stogie that might last over an hour. The pipes were a great addition to my cigars and after he passed away, a welcome reminder of my dad.
Do you know were he purchased them or what was his favorite tobacco? I suspect there was a tobacco store near him, as Kaywoodies wouldn't have been available from the drugstore, like Dr. Grabow, etc.
It’s interesting that you say Kaywoodies were not available in drugstores like the other brands; I wasn’t aware of that. I do remember dad considered his Kaywoodie pipes a step above the others. I always wrote it off as personal preference.
I don’t know where dad purchased the pipes in my collection but think the pipes that I have come from a time when he’d established regular employment and started to build the house in Anchorage in the 1950s. The 1950s was also the time he started buying his firearms, so it was a time when he had steady income, a stable living situation, but before he married.
There were a couple of proper tobacco shops in Anchorage in those days. The owner of the only surviving pipe shop in town commented that some of dad’s tobacco cans weren’t distributed through department or drug stores so he’s pretty sure dad was a visitor to the pipe shops in town back in the day.
Dad’s tobacco brands were all over the place. A wide range of over the counter brands, heavy on the cherry aromatics. Below is a picture of a bunch of dad’s old tobacco cans I was cleaning up to donate to the local pipe store. Some still have faded price tags. He seemed to buy whatever was on sale.
I don’t know where dad purchased the pipes in my collection but think the pipes that I have come from a time when he’d established regular employment and started to build the house in Anchorage in the 1950s. The 1950s was also the time he started buying his firearms, so it was a time when he had steady income, a stable living situation, but before he married.
There were a couple of proper tobacco shops in Anchorage in those days. The owner of the only surviving pipe shop in town commented that some of dad’s tobacco cans weren’t distributed through department or drug stores so he’s pretty sure dad was a visitor to the pipe shops in town back in the day.
Dad’s tobacco brands were all over the place. A wide range of over the counter brands, heavy on the cherry aromatics. Below is a picture of a bunch of dad’s old tobacco cans I was cleaning up to donate to the local pipe store. Some still have faded price tags. He seemed to buy whatever was on sale.
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I’ve only got two Kaywoodies
this Heritage Heirloom Canadian
And this Airway that is stamped London England
this Heritage Heirloom Canadian
And this Airway that is stamped London EnglandAttachments
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Having eight Kaywoodies in a nine pipe Decatur carousel rack was driving me nuts, so a FlameGrain over Kaywoodie 4 hole 90 is en route.