Still Have Your First Pipe? Why or Why Not?

[prndl]

My first pipe was my father's Dr. Grabow Freehand. After several decades, tho, it just doesn't look much like a Grabow Freehand anymore. That man could largely put a pipe thru its paces.
Still have it but, rarely smoke it. It was a heavy hitter back in my 1-Q days, not so much anymore.

 

[tbradsim1]

I still have mine, a Kaywoodie Fine Line, nurse got it for me when I was in the Naval Hospital in Norfolk, smoked it late at night in the janitors closet.

 

[bent1]

I still have my 1st pipe, bought in 1988. It’s a 1/2 bent billiard military bit hand made by a local carver, Johnson.s in Carlisle, PA. Still like the shape & it smokes well. I have pipe #2 Irish Seconds (Sherlock Holmes Professor ), #3 Irish Seconds (Watson), #4 Irish Seconds (Baskerville), all good smokers.

 

[mrenglish]

My first pipe was a Tinder Box basket pipe. I wanted to take up the hobby and I guy I worked with sold me all his stuff for $12 and some comic books. His wife had set him up nicely for Father's Day, pipe, tobaccos, lighter and stuff. But, everytime he smoked it she would give him crap about how cancer runs in his family, etc..
I do not have that one anymore but I do have the first pipe my wife bought me 25 years ago, a Peterson churchwarden that came with two stems. It is still in rotation and finally after all this time, it smokes like a champ.

 

[nitemair13]

I still have my first pipe, not sure who made it but it was given to me by my grandmother in one of those starter packs. I had been smoking cigars to help my anxiety disorder and for some reason my grandmother thought a pipe would be better. Honestly I think she just wanted me to smoke a pipe so she could smell it.
It's made out of pear wood and was rather cheaply made. It didn't exactly do too well during my learning phase so it's been retired and sits as a sentimental piece. I quickly replaced it with some MM cobs.

 

[crashthegrey]

I still have the first pipe, a basket pipe Italian bent rusticated. I once figured out who the original maker was as it had all the looks and stamping except the brand. It was a mediocre Italian factory pipe, even if branded. I still have it and smoke it from time to time. Not the best smoker, but far from the worst. It is a nice reminder of how I got into pipes, and how much nicer some of my pipes are, even if not that much more expensive.

 

[cigrmaster]

The first pipe I purchased was a brand new Savinelli Linea Piu 5 Apple. I was sitting in my buddies cigar lounge when I decided it was time to try a pipe. My buddy had a decent selection of pipes and the Sav had a reasonable price. I still have the pipe but don't smoke it anymore. It has a serious English blend ghost to it and I haven't done anything about getting rid of it.

 

[beefeater33]

I don't have my first pipe, but I remember it well. It was a Tinderbox Monza, bent billiard, bought it in 1985. I bought it strictly based on the name, because I was that cool 18 year old kid driving a 1978 Chevy Monza....... LOL!

 

[aquadoc]

My first pipes were destroyed by my ex. Not much else to say.

 

[mso489]

I feel really lucky to still have my first pipe, and especially that it still has an appeal and smokes fine. Story in original post.

 

[carolinachurchwarden]

Yep. Still have it. She's hanging lovingly on my wall mounted pipe rack as we speak. It was a cob whose manufacturer I could not say because I didn't even look at it when I bought it. Just picked it up off a cardboard display with a pouch of CBG. Uh, maybe I should expand that acronym so not to have it confused...That's CBG, as in Captain Black Gold, not Grape).
I used the ever-loving-HELL out of that pipe. I couldn't tell you how many pouches of CB I went through with on it. Loved every minute of it. I used it so much, I cracked the hell out of the stem and made it practically useless. Made lots of memories with that pipe. Met my first true girlfriend that I stayed with for more than a few weeks with it. Broke up with her after several long years with it. It went with me to college and I quit with it when food and gas became more important than tobacco.
I've actually tried both sizes of stems from MM to see if they can replace it, but the small ones are too small and the big filter stems are too big, it seems. I really do need to get a new stem that'll fit it. Even though it's a cob and even though I have many more similar, nothing is quite the same as your first pipe. Even if it was a stinker, there's still something about that first pipe.

 

[madox07]

My first was a basket briar pipe, no particular manufacturer, it just says "Made in Italy" on the back side of the stem. I bought it from Pipe World, in Austin Texas, in ... 2005 I believe. I still have it, I carried it with me allover the place actually. It smokes great, it's a fairly large half bent billiard, quite classy looking. I smoke aromatics out of it, maybe once every couple of weeks. I have a special attachment to every pipe I own, each has a story, and each served me at some point in the past ... but this is truly special. In fact, I think from all my briars this is the cheapest also. This is a good example of an inexpensive pipe which not necessarily means crappy. Of course it doesn't have all the fine looking details, but it still is a hell of a smoker.

 

[danish]

Unfortunately I do not recall anything about my first pipe. But I still have my first Meer Gourd Calabash, which I bought new, somewhere in Copenhagen around 1984, I think.... It was quite expensive then, that I remember and I was only a student, but I had a well paid spare time job for many years, at the local hospital. There were so many good pipe shops and carvers in Copenhagen at that time, new books and magazines about pipes, a lot of people smoked pipe and we went to several pipe shows and pipe tobacco was not so heavily taxed. So maybe I have a good excuse for becoming a pipe snob from an early age ;-)

 

[samuelgawith01]

My first pipe was a 3/4 bent billiard from the Wally Frank shop in Huntington,Long Island,NY.I purchased it in 1980.I no longer have this pipe,sorry to say.Being young,stupid,and unguided,but mostly young and stupid,I treated this pipe in ways that one should never treat his pipe.I destroyed it in the early 80’s,during my naval service,throwing it overboard one day while at sea.I deserve to be horsewhipped for that,and all I can say is,I was younger then.Between 1980,and 1985,I only purchased two other quality pipes,both of which I still have......A Svendborg hand made,and a Danmore.

 

[winton]

My first pipe was unsmokeable, literally. Actually, that was helpful, since the first tobacco was RYO. I tossed the $10 pipe and spread the tobacco in my wife's rose garden to keep the local cats from pooping in the garden.
My next couple pipes were still cheap, but smoked well.

 

[michiganlover]

My very first pipe was a bent MM Legend, and Prince Albert smoked so quickly it tasted of nothing but ash. I still have the pipe, but probably only smoke it once a year. Both the pipe and the Prince Albert were purchased from Rite Aid around six or seven years ago.
My 2nd, and 3rd pipes were purchased about a week or two later from the same Rite Aid. A Dr Grabow smooth Omega, and a very small straight Dr Grabow Grand Duke. I still have both of those as well. The Omega gets smoked every couple of months, the Grand Duke far less as the abs plastic stem is starting to develop cracks.

 

[dottiewarden]

My first pipe is still happily in the rotation frequently.

A King's Cross (Savinelli sub-brand) 110A blast Featherweight. Purchased some 18 years before ever putting a match to it; somehow I knew I was destined to be a pipe smoker!

 

[rmpeeps]

I do have my first pipe. It’s an Imported Briar I bought back in 1997 in Corpus Christi. One certain obnoxious cigar buddy from NC sent me some pipe tobacco and said I have to try it. So I went and found a pipe. At one shop the salesman tried to sell me a POS with about 7 blatant fills, ...I left. At the next shop I picked out a clean no-name basket pipe.

It’s literally some of the best wood of any pipe I have. Smokes clean, cool, dry, and absolutely will not ghost with even the foulest weed or granny panties blend. A true trooper, a treasure to me.

 

[shanez]

I tossed my first pipe not that long ago. It was a $9 no-name model (search G-Star on Amazon and you'll find the equivalent) and the stem would no longer hold. The stem had been loose for a little while and while smoking one day it bowl rolled over and fell off the stem. I actually picked it up and finished smoking but threw it away afterwards.
My second pipe is a Bjarne churchwarden that I got just a few months after my first pipe and I still smoke it on occasion.

 

[chilllucky]

I do still have it! A Ben Wade freehand bought for $30 in 1992 at a tobacconist in the small town I went to college (the first time) in. It's not a shape I would buy at this point, but I've kept it and still smoke it occasionally because it will always be my number one.