Mission,
I'm pretty new back into piping. I started 35 years ago this past weekend, on my 19th birthday when in the Navy.
Over the ensuing decades, I mostly smoked cigars and occasionally a pipe 3 or 4 times a year.
This past October, 2016, I was up in the mancave to have a cigar late one night and realized that all I had left in my humidor were my Cubans. I had a poker game there a few nights before and cleaned em out. I didn't want to smoke my cubans, I save them for special occasions, so I pulled down my only pipe, a 1987 Nording Freehand Signature, and my only pouch of tobacco, Borkum Riff, that I kept in my humidor.
As was usually the case, I started getting a bit of tongue bite about half way through the bowl. So I decided to look up what caused this and a few hours later I was completely enthralled by all of information out there and the thousands of pipes and tobaccos available.
I particularly enjoyed the different youtube pipe community videos on pipe making and especially restoring/refurbing estate pipes.
I then started poking around on ebay and before I knew it I had half a dozen estate pipes on their way.
I made a trip the next day to Dollar Tree and Hobby lobby and stocked up on all manner of cleaning supplies, sand paper, micro mesh, etc...
A month later I had picked up a variable speed benchtop polisher and mounted it to my ol black & decker workmate bench.
I think I'm up to 50 or 60 pipes now, including a Luciano that I won at the pipe show and a couple of gifts, with 10 or 15 in a box waiting for their turn at being refurbed.
The tobacco is kind of the same story. I started out buying different samples and then picking up tins and bags of the ones I liked. I've also been the recipient of many generous pipers that have sent me different blends to try.
I know that was a long way of answering your question. So, I guess it's been 8 or 9 months.
I'm pretty new back into piping. I started 35 years ago this past weekend, on my 19th birthday when in the Navy.
Over the ensuing decades, I mostly smoked cigars and occasionally a pipe 3 or 4 times a year.
This past October, 2016, I was up in the mancave to have a cigar late one night and realized that all I had left in my humidor were my Cubans. I had a poker game there a few nights before and cleaned em out. I didn't want to smoke my cubans, I save them for special occasions, so I pulled down my only pipe, a 1987 Nording Freehand Signature, and my only pouch of tobacco, Borkum Riff, that I kept in my humidor.
As was usually the case, I started getting a bit of tongue bite about half way through the bowl. So I decided to look up what caused this and a few hours later I was completely enthralled by all of information out there and the thousands of pipes and tobaccos available.
I particularly enjoyed the different youtube pipe community videos on pipe making and especially restoring/refurbing estate pipes.
I then started poking around on ebay and before I knew it I had half a dozen estate pipes on their way.
I made a trip the next day to Dollar Tree and Hobby lobby and stocked up on all manner of cleaning supplies, sand paper, micro mesh, etc...
A month later I had picked up a variable speed benchtop polisher and mounted it to my ol black & decker workmate bench.
I think I'm up to 50 or 60 pipes now, including a Luciano that I won at the pipe show and a couple of gifts, with 10 or 15 in a box waiting for their turn at being refurbed.
The tobacco is kind of the same story. I started out buying different samples and then picking up tins and bags of the ones I liked. I've also been the recipient of many generous pipers that have sent me different blends to try.
I know that was a long way of answering your question. So, I guess it's been 8 or 9 months.
