The Golden Age Of Pipe Smoking

[fireground_piper]

Some extra tall glasses of nostalgia here as well to a degree.

While there are some certainly favored things gone, you can’t omit things like the real awful chemicals manufacturers were found to be putting on their product. Additionally some other real garbage product like all the crappy briar that survives, Brylon, some of the lowest quality vulcanite you can find, Stingers, doodlers, you name it.

For the sheer amount of volume that was once output yearly, the ratio of high grade and quality I think can be debated to today for pipes and tobacco. I mean there are tons and tons of straight crap that was output, trying to grab the attention of a saturated market. That’s less impressive to me.

I do wish the strains of tobacco that once existed that were so good, doctors prescribed them to cure illnesses were still around. It was a miracle time back then.

 

[hoosierpipeguy]

I don't think I can consider it the Golden age of pipe smoking when I can go two to three years before I see anyone smoking a pipe anywhere other than a tobacco shop. About the only thing Golden I can see is it seems the majority of pipe smokers these days are well into their Golden years.

 

[TN Jed]

The golden of age of anything is an individual emotion. I have friends that collect 1980's cars (the ugliest cars ever made imho) because that is their golden age of driving. My golden age of tobacco is now .

 

[mso489]

Earlier posts have mentioned a lot of what is not golden about the present. The golden part is online sales of pipes and blends which greatly expands information about artisan pipes, factory pipe brands, and pipe tobacco blends. You can shop on your device and learn a lot about pipes and blends without traveling, phoning, or chasing catalogs. Before the pandemic, pipe shows were another face-to-face format for shopping, purchasing, and learning about pipes and blends.

The future for pipes, pipe tobacco, and pipe smoking looks somewhat negative, but in the U.S., at least, the situation is still pretty good in terms of distribution, prices, and interest among the niche community.

 

[novaki]

When I first started to really get into pipe smoking around 2016, give or take a year, every pouch I bought back then had a ton of wet, goopy PGP in it. That’s one thing that got a bit better IMO.

I tried maybe one Dunhill before they closed. I didn’t know what McClelland was until after they were long gone. There’s still a lot of tobacco on the market but the list has gotten noticeably smaller. SPC used to have like 20+ blends and now they just have the hits. Big brand classics like Carter Hall and Prince Albert switched to 14oz cans only making it not really worth trying unless you already know you like it.

The small batches and special limited edition tinsnewer thing that seem to be taking off, and I participate in that but it causes some serious FOMO and there’s less of a sense of “oh I really like this and it will be there tomorrow and I don’t have to worry about not buying more than I need.” I tend to feel the struggle between wanting to try new stuff but also feeling like I need to stock up on my favs just in case they disappear overnight. Also, supposedly nobody on the forums or tobacco reviews likes lakelands but you could have fooled me given the impossibility of finding some stuff like G&H. I vaguely remember there being a lot of GH in bulk that made it easier to sample but now most of it is by the pound and I can’t make that kind of commitment.

I can’t speak much for pipes as I’ve never smoked older briar and couldn’t tell you the difference.

Some things are better but overall it seems kinda worse than when I first started. But I’m kind of a newb anyway so I couldn’t tell you what it was like any further back than about five years ago.

 

[Chasing Embers]

I tried maybe one Dunhill before they closed.

The only difference with the Peterson blends are the labels. Same manufacturer, tobaccos, and tins prior to the change.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Also, supposedly nobody on the forums or tobacco reviews likes lakelands

Tobacco reviews are a horrible place to investigate tobacco blends.

 

[Searock Fan]

Between '46 and '67 they were a Dunhill subsidiary. I've had one and they are great pipes.

Now that you mention it I seem to remember that they were supposed to be Dunhill seconds. I seem to remember that the shop selling them to me had recently been purchase from the founder who was a big time Dunhill collector.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Now that you mention it I seem to remember that they were supposed to be Dunhill seconds. I seem to remember that the shop selling them to me had recently been purchase from the founder who was a big time Dunhill collector.

Dunhill bought them out in the '40s. More of a secondary company like Rossi is for Savinelli rather than a seconds line but I have heard them described that way.

 

[Searock Fan]

I don't think I can consider it the Golden age of pipe smoking when I can go two to three years before I see anyone smoking a pipe anywhere other than a tobacco shop. About the only thing Golden I can see is it seems the majority of pipe smokers these days are well into their Golden years.

Amen brother....