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recoilrob

Starting to Get Obsessed
Apr 16, 2011
179
133
This pipe would not be anything special except for what was done to it after I bought it and what that caused....

I bought it in 1998 from Fine Olde Briars which was run by Steve Abrams and Rob Denholz here in NY, they were members of The Hudson Valley Pipe Club (HVPC) of which I was a member and eventually Dictator (we didn't have a president, that would have meant too much discussion, so me had a dictator).

The pipe is a CAO Calabash that had an interesting oak leaf carving on the rim...

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The ferrule was nondescript, black vulcanite, which hardly did the bowl and amber stem justice, I started having thoughts about having a custom ferrule made for it.

At the time I was taking ceramics classes at the Westchester Arts Workshop in White Plains, NY. The ceramic studio was next to the jewelry studio and there was a class in there at the same time as mine, run by an interesting looking fellow, so one evening on a break I went in there to discuss commissioning him to make a ferrule for me.

It turned out he was a pipe smoker and was very interested in doing the work. We got to talking and I found out he had made a couple of his own pipes when he was younger back in Romania so I told him about the HVPC and our meetings which were close to his home in New Paltz, NY. I invited him to the next meeting and he actually showed up and brought some of the pipes he made. They were nice but nothing really special. He had a great time, the rest of the club liked him very much and he quickly became an esteemed member.

If you don't know by now his name was Rolando Negoita. Inspired by several members of the HVPC who were also pipemakers Rolando started making pipes again and quickly rose to the pinnacle of the craft. We were so lucky to have him, he was a delightful man, full of talent, always willing to share.

Here's what he ended up doing to my meerschaum, a silver ferule and tamper to match the oak leaf carving.


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