Starting up again with 25 years of tobacco cellared and 30 quality artisan pipes are you? Yes, you are badly afflicted, but so am I and many others on the forums. We can be humming along in our niche quite happily did we not know about some new blend; but hark! it beckons as easily as the Chenet's Cake Bulk Buy or the 30% perique blend by that Nat Sherman blender on the home page. If it sounds good I gotta have it! And then there's the write-up about Chicago. Anyone who already has plenty of pipes should definitely attend. Similarly, you have plenty of pipes and plenty of tobacco, but should you not also attend? If I could afford it I'd be there, as I really don't have plenty of pipes, only 25, half of which are cobs. This is of course all tongue-in-cheek. I went down with cigars, and coming back to pipes I swore I wouldn't overspend in the same manner, and although more consistently restrained, I've still managed to spend $5000? (who's counting?) in 2.5 years, and on any given day I could spend another $10-$20K. Give me a week and I could spend $50K. My problem is I love all of it, cigars and humidors, artisan pipes and the infinity of pipe tobaccos; and if I love the tobacco, only 5 pounds cellared satisfies, and if I seriously love it, 20 (1792) or 40 lbs (Dark Flake).
I think the love of tobacco is generated and sustained by many things. The taste is intoxicating and very enjoyable given the many ways tobacco is manipulated by plant variety, curing, blending and aging. Smoke is the best conductor of flavor, and is it not engaging to pull it through a pipe by artful regulation, and then into the mouth there to be held, tasted, chewed and blissfully expelled? No doubt the many hallowed pipe smokers that have come before us, whose poise and brilliance bespeak the accomplished gentleman, attract those smokers with similar characteristics to the pipe. Yes, we are (well, maybe) all of that!
But other than the delights of smoking per se, the out-of-control acquisitivity that some smokers come to have has more to do with the age-old problem of desire than anything else. Yes, certainly, the infinite joys of pipe culture, the study of design and form with the same emphasis on functionality, offer very seductive reasons to lay one's money down. But in the end, for the wallet-afflicted, pipe culture must be managed rather than allowed to fan the endless flame. In the pipe world pipes are the enemy.
Can you afford what you want to put down on the vendor's table? Right now I want 10 Missouri Meerschaum Mark Twain pipes, a generous group 4-sized Dublin under 50 grams and a couple pounds of the bulk Chenet's Cake. That seems reasonable at a total of $200. But adoring all things tobacco, once I get these items I should stop. I really should.
If serious about restraint, the pipe addiction must be managed every day; it is enough to get through the day.
Thus, I draw my line in the sand.
Mike
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