The Good Old Days

[admin]

There was a time when pipe smokers weren't all lumped in together with cigarette smokers. The dad in "Father Knows Best" was a pipe smoker. Pipe smokers were thought of as gentlemen. Could you imagine the backlash if Avon Products, Inc. came out with a series of aftershave bottles shaped like smoking pipes today!?!?! They would probably get boycotted, and have protesters outside their headquarters.
About a month ago, at The Kansas City Pipe Show, I met Allan Shinogle as he was displaying his collection of Avon aftershave bottles from the 1970s. Check out his collection and information from "The Good Old Days".

 

[blueeyedogre]

We are still gentlemen..... well, with the exception of guys like Peck bringing us down :lol:...... I belong to several forums and this forum above all others contains a dignity, a level of respect and compassion that one doesn't find on other forum , or in the real world for that matter. Where a member can state "My son is a Marine" and he is met with "Thanks you for service" and "You should be proud". Where a member can free speak of hardship and victories and receive condolences or congrats from fellow member that true care. You started a great thing here Kevin, and while I'm not gonna kiss ass here I am going to say thank you for letting me be a part of somewhere where men still act like men, and respect and simple human decency is found. :clap:

 

[cmdrmcbragg]

Aside from the "incorrectness" of using a pipe as an aftershave bottle shape, from a marketing standpoint I don't think it is nearly as marketable as something more ... normal. Plus you have to keep in mind that Avon made their aftershave bottles in a plethora of shapes, colors, etc. That just isn't done anymore, even Avon has abandoned the practice themselves.
Different era, all things change.
There will always be a market for vintage/throwback items, but the majority of consumers will go for something normal, safe and modern.

 

[cynyr]

I was gifted a brown apple shape last year. It did come from a yard sale, but in this economy it was down to fifteen cents!

 

[plateauguy]

My wife rarely stops at garage sales, today she did and saw an Avon "Sherlock Holmes" - did she buy it, NO! When I asked her why, she said that "it was just old Avon, why would you want it?". She has a ways to go . . .

 

[cigrmaster]

If Avon ever made bottles like that again, the anti's would put them out of business. Our society has totally forgotten what our forefathers wrote in the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It is incredibly depressing at where our country is headed.

 

[mso489]

Maybe the binary basis of computers has affected our intellectual life. Everything is either a 1 or a 0.

Tobacco bad. Politically incorrect. One definition is that intelligence is the time between perception

and response, theoretically time taken to think things over. To see two or several sides of a question

is seen as lack of conviction and flip-flopping. Ratiocination (to think and ponder) is deeply out of

fashion. This may be our downfall.

 

[cmdrmcbragg]

@harris the same could be said for a whole slew of things, but it's all about party lines, religion and money. Judging by comments I see on the internet about political correctness I'd say the majority of Americans don't like it (at least the internet users) but the walking offended make a lot more noise because the rest of us quite frankly have better things to do than be butthurt about what other people are doing: being gay, smoking, doing drugs, saying offensive things, etc.

 

[ruscho]

I think we have it much better than the "old days" - so many types of blends and pipes, availability is great and anyone anywhere with a mail box can get anything their heart desires for much cheaper than it would've cost back in the days.
I'll take this over not having Avon pipe bottles any day of the week
The only reason Avon is not making pipe bottles is that it would be poor marketing expenditure - very small percentage of the population smokes pipes, why waste resources making them?

 

[cmdrmcbragg]

+1 @ruscho, I 100% agree with everything you said. Thanks for echoing my take on the Avon bottles. We do have it better now with the proliferation of tobacco blends, blenders, online ordering, delivery options, etc. I don't worry too much about a lot of this doom and gloom stuff.

 

[puffy]

Back in my working days The marketing folks told me that they had some objectives in selling.First was to get a connection with the customer.The second was to gain the customers trust.Whether or not those bottles sold wasn't the issue.In fact Avon's customers are mostly women.Back in those days almost all these women knew a pipe smoker that they trusted,and the public image of a pipe smoker was that of a person with both feet on the ground who could be trusted.Putting those bottles in their book was in part to create an image that would convince these women that Avon respected pipe smokers so they must respect all their customers.My guess is that the vast majority of those bottles sold were bought by women for a pipe smoker that they knew..Just nuances of marketing to create an image of a company and the products they're selling.

 

[gregprince]

+1 @mso489 too many people today demand that every answer be a 1 or 0. The truth is never 1 or 0. Fundamental to classical philosophy (Socrates), Judaism, Christianity, Indian philosophy and many modern philosophies is that truth is found in the dialectic between 1 and 0. Those who insist that their opinion (1 or 0) is the whole truth are wrong. The truth is approached when 1 hears 0 and they work toward a synthesis. Just my view, I doubt that I have the whole truth here.

 

[admin]

Can you guys please copy / paste your comments into the Comments section of the actual article as well? I would appreciate it. Thanks.

 

[davidintexas]

+1@gregprince

 

[crazypipe]

Yes kevin I remember these so well, had a few myself ::

 

[okiescout]

blueeyedogre "We are still gentlemen..... well, with the exception of guys like Peck bringing us down :lol:...... I belong to several forums and this forum above all others contains a dignity, a level of respect and compassion that one doesn't find on other forum , or in the real world for that matter. Where a member can state "My son is a Marine" and he is met with "Thanks you for service" and "You should be proud". Where a member can free speak of hardship and victories and receive condolences or congrats from fellow member that true care. You started a great thing here Kevin, and while I'm not gonna kiss ass here I am going to say thank you for letting me be a part of somewhere where men still act like men, and respect and simple human decency is found."
ae1pt "We are steadily losing our sense of community in favor of society. Smartphone addicts think that they are engaged in community--what they are in is a hollow farce that usually is comprised of a bunch of posers carefully curating appearances to reflect what they want. And any can be discarded in a heartbeat.
Having to live and negotiate daily life together in neighborhoods and social enclaves of direct encounter--we learned to be considerate--in varying degrees--of each other. We maintained similar sensibilities--and were not provoked to "instant outrage" by the latest fodder to fill a web page. I run into so many young professionals these days who simply don't know how to interrelate and behave in a social environment that is not a club, bar, or similar venue.
Whilst all was not sweetness and light back in the Beaver Fantasy of the 50s, not so many ordinary things were inappropriate, and we certainly did not need the nanny mentality so prevalent today. I would like to say that the cancerous dysfunctions of prejudice, domestic violence, sexual abuse of children, disenfranchisement of women and minorities that were an entrenched part of those times was gone now. Still prevalent--just in some instances taking a different and deeply insidious form."
Well said,blueeyedogre and ae1pt ! Cannot state it any better!

 

[ocpsdan]

I posted in the article, but the sum of it was that my little brother found the bulldog bottle at a garage sale this past weekend and gifted it to me. Pretty cool, it still has cologne in it (it smells a lot like BRUT).