(See Part I of the story here)
When my wife came back from the post office on Friday, there was a small box addressed to her business, from a good friend of ours. She runs a thrift store out in the SoCal desert, and knows that I smoke a pipe. She must've been thankful for the London Fog trenchcoat I gifted her for her shop earlier this year, useless to me in my current location, but very appealing to LA hipsters. The contents of this box were the last thing I was expecting:
That's a La Rocca Due bent billiard on top, going for that same faux-Oom Paul motif that my Savinelli Tortuga 614 has. I realize that this is just a basket pipe, but it's light, beautifully designed, and should provide me with a nice filterless alternative. But the real gem is the other--upon looking into the stamp, I realized I had been gifted a Barling. Now, I know relatively little about them, but I do know enough to know that this ain't just some random basket pipe! This one has a very deep bowl, and is also filterless. Both of them also required barely any cleanup. They pass a pipecleaner well, and I look forward to trying out the Barling this afternoon with a VA or something similarly innocuous.
Needless to say, I'm very thankful for the generosity of others, especially in the last year. Pipe gifts from numerous people (both friends and complete strangers), the Tortuga from @Streeper541 , and a most delightful cache of samples from @TheIronMonkey (and a Foyard too!) that I'm still working on. I really appreciate the camraderie of this forum, and the wealth of information I've gleaned from it in the past...wow, almost two years now. I know I mostly gravitate toward obnoxious sarcasm and bad puns in lieu of helpful advice on most posts, but I really am indebted to @admin and the rest of the staff for running such an efficient operation. May it continue for many years to come!
And lastly...calling @sablebrush52 ! Hope you can help me ID this one with your vast cerebral Barling library. The shank says "BBS" in fancy curlicue cursive on one side, and "LONDON ENGLAND" on the other, if that helps.
regards,
Gabe aka Servant King
When my wife came back from the post office on Friday, there was a small box addressed to her business, from a good friend of ours. She runs a thrift store out in the SoCal desert, and knows that I smoke a pipe. She must've been thankful for the London Fog trenchcoat I gifted her for her shop earlier this year, useless to me in my current location, but very appealing to LA hipsters. The contents of this box were the last thing I was expecting:
That's a La Rocca Due bent billiard on top, going for that same faux-Oom Paul motif that my Savinelli Tortuga 614 has. I realize that this is just a basket pipe, but it's light, beautifully designed, and should provide me with a nice filterless alternative. But the real gem is the other--upon looking into the stamp, I realized I had been gifted a Barling. Now, I know relatively little about them, but I do know enough to know that this ain't just some random basket pipe! This one has a very deep bowl, and is also filterless. Both of them also required barely any cleanup. They pass a pipecleaner well, and I look forward to trying out the Barling this afternoon with a VA or something similarly innocuous.
Needless to say, I'm very thankful for the generosity of others, especially in the last year. Pipe gifts from numerous people (both friends and complete strangers), the Tortuga from @Streeper541 , and a most delightful cache of samples from @TheIronMonkey (and a Foyard too!) that I'm still working on. I really appreciate the camraderie of this forum, and the wealth of information I've gleaned from it in the past...wow, almost two years now. I know I mostly gravitate toward obnoxious sarcasm and bad puns in lieu of helpful advice on most posts, but I really am indebted to @admin and the rest of the staff for running such an efficient operation. May it continue for many years to come!
And lastly...calling @sablebrush52 ! Hope you can help me ID this one with your vast cerebral Barling library. The shank says "BBS" in fancy curlicue cursive on one side, and "LONDON ENGLAND" on the other, if that helps.
regards,
Gabe aka Servant King
