Show Off Your Lee Pipes Here!

[telescopes]

Thanks for sharing, I’ve been staring at eBay ever since you started talking about Lee, and I’ve never seen any nice one for sale. Hmm gonna have to stare harder I guess, or you’re buying from another eBay... LOL

Nice Lees are hard to score. Honestly, I think @Parsimonious Piper and @Briar Lee cleaned out the better selections over the last ten years. That said, some really good ones do pop up. Mr. @Parsimonious Piper apparently gets in there and has ways of getting nice ones off the market quickly before the bidding begins, LOL. A few other members on here have started bidding on the pipes and that of course drives up the bidding to beyond what I am willing to pay. A Lee is a 45-55 dollar pipe. Yes, pipes are worth whatever anyone is willing to pay for one, but really, anything over that is just throwing good money after bad. In all cases, I have sent my pipes to Briarworks for reconditioning. I find that the stummels tend to be full of gunk and the bowls poorly cleaned. The good news is that the vulcanite is generally a low sulphur material and oxidation issues are minimal.

What you get with a Lee is the following:

1. An adequate smoking pipe - @LotusEater makes fun of me for singing the praises of mediocrity, but yeh, they are just an above average smoking pipe - BUT, they are consistently above average and that is something I think can generally be said about Lees. FWIW.

2. They re-clock easily. No heating up the threads or stinger.

3. The briar tends to be dense. This has been true of my own observations as well as the observations of a pipe restorer who has seen quite a few Lees come by his bench.

4. They are solidly built. Drop one, does it not bleed? Nope, it dose not. I haven't had one break on me yet. Yet.

5. The stain, the finish, and the cut and finish seem to be very forgiving of cleaning and sanding mistakes. They are stained deeply so when they are given a thorough cleaning after they arrive, any damage done during the cleaning process is easily repaired. For instance, sanding out a scratch. Most likely, just buffing the finish with lighter and lighter micro mesh will clean it up and no stain will be needed.

6, They aren't the prettiest pipe so one feels better about putting them in places where they might get knocked around a bit. A tackle box, a glove compartment, whatever. They are solid so they seem to do well as a traveling pipe.

7. They are Midcentury pipes. Excellent examples of pipe and grain and finish for the times. Don't expect a sand blast finish. Lees are about the grain, or at least what purports to be grain.

8. The first and second generation pipes are preferable. Skip the third generation. Those are five pointed stars laid on with a poor gold foil. These pipes can smoke just as well as the earlier generations but seriously, they look pathetic with the worn off foil. Also, avoid the third generation rusticated finishes. If you are into that period of rustication, go with a Marxman.

9. The styles are traditional. Don't expect anything daring. But there are many shapes to choose from.

10. The stinger is removable. To quote Gandalf, "Keep it secret, keep it safe." You will want it should you chose to resell your pipe. But this also means it is easy to clean the pipe. And along those lines, the draw seems to be more of an open, unrestricted draw which might account for why these pipes smoke a bit better than average.

As to why Mr. @Briar Lee loves these pipes so much, he loves them so much because he can. He discovered them when there was very little written about them except from what one could glean from the brochures. Like our good story teller, J.R.R. Tolkien, he created an entire mythos to help explain where these pipes came from, who Lee was, and how in the years following the war, a pipe was offered for sale at $25 if it had five stars. Then there was the slogan, "Follow the stars". This caught the imagination of a dreamy hillbilly country boy who was use to listening to the tales of his relatives spin long yarns about this and that. Over the years he acquired many Lees. Many were new and still in the box. Why was this so? How was this possible? These questions only deepened the mystery and thus the story of Pipes by Lee eventually took on a life of its own.

So there you have it. Get yourself a Lee. See what all the fuss is about. If it means anything to you, I don't plan to sell any of mine or even give them away. I can't explain it. Sometimes, I just want a pipe to look like a pipe, smoke like a pipe, and be a bit better than average.

That's a Lee.

Am I right?

 

[PipeIT]

Dr. Grabow just needed company was all... LOL

 

[didimauw]

Nice Lees are hard to score. Honestly, I think @Parsimonious Piper and @Briar Lee cleaned out the better selections over the last ten years. That said, some really good ones do pop up. Mr. @Parsimonious Piper apparently gets in there and has ways of getting nice ones off the market quickly before the bidding begins, LOL. A few other members on here have started bidding on the pipes and that of course drives up the bidding to beyond what I am willing to pay. A Lee is a 45-55 dollar pipe. Yes, pipes are worth whatever anyone is willing to pay for one, but really, anything over that is just throwing good money after bad. In all cases, I have sent my pipes to Briarworks for reconditioning. I find that the stummels tend to be full of gunk and the bowls poorly cleaned. The good news is that the vulcanite is generally a low sulphur material and oxidation issues are minimal.

What you get with a Lee is the following:

1. An adequate smoking pipe - @LotusEater makes fun of me for singing the praises of mediocrity, but yeh, they are just an above average smoking pipe - BUT, they are consistently above average and that is something I think can generally be said about Lees. FWIW.

2. They re-clock easily. No heating up the threads or stinger.

3. The briar tends to be dense. This has been true of my own observations as well as the observations of a pipe restorer who has seen quite a few Lees come by his bench.

4. They are solidly built. Drop one, does it not bleed? Nope, it dose not. I haven't had one break on me yet. Yet.

5. The stain, the finish, and the cut and finish seem to be very forgiving of cleaning and sanding mistakes. They are stained deeply so when they are given a thorough cleaning after they arrive, any damage done during the cleaning process is easily repaired. For instance, sanding out a scratch. Most likely, just buffing the finish with lighter and lighter micro mesh will clean it up and no stain will be needed.

6, They aren't the prettiest pipe so one feels better about putting them in places where they might get knocked around a bit. A tackle box, a glove compartment, whatever. They are solid so they seem to do well as a traveling pipe.

7. They are Midcentury pipes. Excellent examples of pipe and grain and finish for the times. Don't expect a sand blast finish. Lees are about the grain, or at least what purports to be grain.

8. The first and second generation pipes are preferable. Skip the third generation. Those are five pointed stars laid on with a poor gold foil. These pipes can smoke just as well as the earlier generations but seriously, they look pathetic with the worn off foil. Also, avoid the third generation rusticated finishes. If you are into that period of rustication, go with a Marxman.

9. The styles are traditional. Don't expect anything daring. But there are many shapes to choose from.

10. The stinger is removable. To quote Gandalf, "Keep it secret, keep it safe." You will want it should you chose to resell your pipe. But this also means it is easy to clean the pipe. And along those lines, the draw seems to be more of an open, unrestricted draw which might account for why these pipes smoke a bit better than average.

As to why Mr. @Briar Lee loves these pipes so much, he loves them so much because he can. He discovered them when there was very little written about them except from what one could glean from the brochures. Like our good story teller, J.R.R. Tolkien, he created an entire mythos to help explain where these pipes came from, who Lee was, and how in the years following the war, a pipe was offered for sale at $25 if it had five stars. Then there was the slogan, "Follow the stars". This caught the imagination of a dreamy hillbilly country boy who was use to listening to the tales of his relatives spin long yarns about this and that. Over the years he acquired many Lees. Many were new and still in the box. Why was this so? How was this possible? These questions only deepened the mystery and thus the story of Pipes by Lee eventually took on a life of its own.

So there you have it. Get yourself a Lee. See what all the fuss is about. If it means anything to you, I don't plan to sell any of mine or even give them away. I can't explain it. Sometimes, I just want a pipe to look like a pipe, smoke like a pipe, and be a bit better than average.

That's a Lee.

Am I right?

Couldn't have said it better myself.

This could be framed and hung somewhere.

 

[Briar Lee]

I agree whole heartedly with the above and add one more thing.

Travel in your mind with me back to Mr Lee hearing the news of Hiroshima.

Then three days later, Nagasaki.

Then there’s wild jubilation in the streets of New York, and all across America.

(Other nations ought to remember what happens when they decide to sneak up and bomb Pearl Harbor early one Sunday morning. )



Unless Mr Lee had a rich family he needed several things to launch his own new pipe company, and the first was a business plan to go begging for a loan.

Of all the many selling points listed above one got Lee his starting capital.

A brand new Lee smokes sweeter than honey.

Lee had some way to season his briar that if anybody else since had discovered, they’d surely use it.

Lee intended his pipes to be smoked.

Instead a whole bunch of $10 Three Stars wound up unused in drawers of cigarette smoking soldiers who were grateful for the homecoming present, but preferred Luckies, Camels, and Chesterfields.

 

[Parsimonious Piper]

Nice Lees are hard to score. Honestly, I think @Parsimonious Piper and @Briar Lee cleaned out the better selections over the last ten years.

I’ve done my best And your comments are on point, though my carved Chinese warrior (3 7-pt stars) begs to differ with #9.

 

[telescopes]

I’ve done my best And your comments are on point, though my carved Chinese warrior (3 7-pt stars) begs to differ with #9.

Yes, was that one recently on eBay? Is it authentic. ? I was so tidbit was a frankenpipe some one put together.

 

[Briar Lee]

Yes, was that one recently on eBay? Is it authentic. ? I was so tidbit was a frankenpipe some one put together.

One advantage Lees have in the used market is that who in the hell would fake a 7 or 5 pointed gold star?


Nice white spot, ain’t it?

Perfect!

Bet it doesn’t have an individually clocked recessed aluminum screw stem with removable stinger, though.

You could counterfeit a Lee, but a Lee factory would be mighty handy doing it.

 

[Parsimonious Piper]

Yes, was that one recently on eBay? Is it authentic. ? I was so tidbit was a frankenpipe some one put together.

It wasn’t. It was a gift a couple years ago. Stamping and stars consistent with my other Lees.

 

[Parsimonious Piper]

Carved Chinese warrior, 3 7-pt stars. Whoever overbuffed the stem (severely) also damaged the stamping, but “PIPE” and the script Lee are still visible, along with the “LI” and “ION“ of “LIMITED EDITION” on one side. Stamping on the other is clear. If it’s a forgery, it’s a rather good one.

 

[telescopes]

Carved Chinese warrior, 3 7-pt stars. Whoever overbuffed the stem (severely) also damaged the stamping, but “PIPE” and the script Lee are still visible, along with the “LI” and “ION“ of “LIMITED EDITION” on one side. Stamping on the other is clear. If it’s a forgery, it’s a rather good one.View attachment 168196View attachment 168197View attachment 168198View attachment 168199View attachment 168200View attachment 168201

Interesting. There is one available on eBay right now that is similar. I put a bid on it but asked for a retraction because I noticed later that the button is missing- a fairly bad break. But the Pipes by Lee is clear and so is the limited Edition. The mystery of Lee deepens.

 

[Parsimonious Piper]

Here’s an interesting one. It’s a Belge (Cutty minus the foot).

Note the stem has indentations that look like they held 3 7-pt stars.

But it’s a push stem.

The only Lees with push stems that I’ve ever seen or heard of were 3rd gen, but they had 5-pt stamped stars. I’ve seen a few 7-pt star pipes where the stars had come out, but they all had the screw-in stem. ???

 

[OzPiper]

A “tweeny” ?

ie made in-between eras (during changeover) when they used up leftover bits and pieces before switching to the new

 

[Briar Lee]

Some ruminations.

That Belge has extraordinarily fancy grain for a production line Lee pipe. How many Belge shapes could Lee have made? Enough to set up automatic shaping machines?

Installing the rear screw tenon would have been possible perhaps, but difficult.

I’ve considered that perhaps the greatest cost and most cause of ruined pipes was inlaying the gold stars deeply.

Query if that could be a late 1940s handmade prototype or salesman’s sample or display piece?

Gold foil stars would have looked good long enough to sell pipes.

Third generation push stem stamped star Lees aren’t junk, but that one is just too pretty to be one of the last Lees out the door.

Here’s a typical late push stem stamped star. The last ones were not stamped Limited Editions and had a blank opposite shank, no stampings.

 

[Briar Lee]

To my delight and surprise the seller accepted a $25 offer on this large squat bulldog 7 point star Three Star.


Lee made a small, medium and large squat billiard, and when I say large, it’s large for 1946.

There are also small, medium, and large Lee billiards. Here’s a large stamped star Three Star.


Compare with a medium stamped star Three Star Apple.


The early 7 and 5 point star era pipes have deeply inlaid, actual low carat gold stars, a tiny bit better finishing, especially on the button of the stem, and there might be a visible fill or two on third era stamped stars.

But all Pipes by Lee, from a Briarlee to a Star Grade, smoke second to none. There are no better smokers, unless they’ve been just smoked to death already before your turn to be their custodian.

Lee didn’t use the best briar in the world but he did select and sell only the finest smoking briar available, and he helped it by a further curing process maybe Jguss can enlighten us all about.

Any Lee is the best kept secret in used pipes.

 

[telescopes]

To my delight and surprise the seller accepted a $25 offer on this large squat bulldog 7 point star Three Star.

View attachment 172210View attachment 172211
Lee made a small, medium and large squat billiard, and when I say large, it’s large for 1946.

There are also small, medium, and large Lee billiards. Here’s a large stamped star Three Star.

View attachment 172213View attachment 172216
Compare with a medium stamped star Three Star Apple.

View attachment 172219View attachment 172220
The early 7 and 5 point star era pipes have deeply inlaid, actual low carat gold stars, a tiny bit better finishing, especially on the button of the stem, and there might be a visible fill or two on third era stamped stars.

But all Pipes by Lee, from a Briarlee to a Star Grade, smoke second to none. There are no better smokers, unless they’ve been just smoked to death already before your turn to be their custodian.

Lee didn’t use the best briar in the world but he did select and sell only the finest smoking briar available, and he helped it by a further curing process maybe Jguss can enlighten us all about.

Any Lee is the best kept secret in used pipes.

Just like the Leviathan in the Book of Job?

 

[Briar Lee]

Just like the Leviathan in the Book of Job?

There surely had to be some kind of a big fish back in there somewhere, around the time of old Jona.

Three quarters of a century have passed since Lee stood on the docks and bid for what might have been the only large stash of five year old, aged briar on our planet. Thanks to Jguss we know it’s not a legend.

Another century will pass, and centuries more after that, and many Lees now in service today will be lost, damaged, or simply smoked up. But many will also remain.

A Lee pipe isn’t magical. It’s a hunk of briar attached to a hard rubber stem, and the cheapest Lees have a Dunhill type push stem. Even the Star Grades could be re stemmed the same as a Dunhill, even with a white spot to aid stem alignment, if desired.

There is nothing new, under the sun.

I’ve never personally held or seen a Gold Coast, but they were and still are, real pipes made by the hands of Lee.

All a beginning pipe smoker will need to do 250 years from today will be to trust that a pipe made by Lee was the best Lee could make a pipe, and he’ll have a cool, sweet smoker.

If not for Mussolini siding with Hitler, the briar blocks in the holds of that freighter might have have all wound up Kaywoodies.

 

[telescopes]

There surely had to be some kind of a big fish back in there somewhere, around the time of old Jona.

Three quarters of a century have passed since Lee stood on the docks and bid for what might have been the only large stash of five year old, aged briar on our planet. Thanks to Jguss we know it’s not a legend.

Another century will pass, and centuries more after that, and many Lees now in service today will be lost, damaged, or simply smoked up. But many will also remain.

A Lee pipe isn’t magical. It’s a hunk of briar attached to a hard rubber stem, and the cheapest Lees have a Dunhill type push stem. Even the Star Grades could be re stemmed the same as a Dunhill, even with a white spot to aid stem alignment, if desired.

There is nothing new, under the sun.

I’ve never personally held or seen a Gold Coast, but they were and still are, real pipes made by the hands of Lee.

All a beginning pipe smoker will need to do 250 years from today will be to trust that a pipe made by Lee was the best Lee could make a pipe, and he’ll have a cool, sweet smoker.

If not for Mussolini siding with Hitler, the briar blocks in the holds of that freighter might have have all wound up Kaywoodies.

That’s a hell of a fish tale.

 

[didimauw]

That’s a hell of a fish tale.

Aren't they all??? Lol

 

[Briar Lee]

At the very end, there were imported from Italy cheap varnished Briarlee pipes, maybe even Star Grades.


I don’t want that one, but it seems to have the lower quality Kaywoodie type screw stem used on some New York made Briarlees, even a few late Star Grades. Did the Italians also have the Lee curing process?

Aside from the recessed hidden screw stem, and the gold stars, what made Lee special and different was some sort of curing process that makes every genuine factory pipe made in New York by Lee very pleasant to break in.

I’ve read they were oil cured the same as other higher end pipes were.

But for all I know, Lee might have boiled them in saccharin, or a sugar concentrate.

Lee must have kept it a secret, or else all the other pipe makers would do it today.

Find a barely or unsmoked Lee, and light it up.

You’ll know how Paul felt, on the road to Damascus.

They do smoke sweet from the first bowl.

Try one.

 

[Parsimonious Piper]

To my delight and surprise the seller accepted a $25 offer on this large squat bulldog 7 point star Three Star.

That oughta clean up nicely.