While I agree with
@georged 100% both as a skilled tradesman and a (very) amateur pipe repairmen. I do think with so called "flat rate" pipe repair there is some level of understanding with the purchaser that yes this a repair that will simply return my pipe to smoking service not a museum resto of a high end collector piece. There is still some expectation of quality of work, to at least do less harm than good. In some of these cases, the job was not even completed to the bare minimum of "repair" standards and the pipe was in even worse shape than when it had been sent out. That is unacceptable at any level.
As far as the cost of quality work goes, the problem with pipe repair is that it takes the same amount of time and skill to hand cut a stem for a 1904 Peterson as it does to hand cut a stem for an $80 pipe, the cost does not scale. Most of the folks who have the necessary cross section of engineering and trade skills necessary to do high end repair/resto work are going to go to an industry where nobody bats an eye at scale and the cost of doing a job right is a drop in the bucket.
While pipe repair is challenging and requires a set of skills that are rapidly disappearing from the modern vocational lexicon, it is at the end of the day what were once considered to be pretty basic manual machining skills coupled with a high level of attention to detail and the ability to use hand files properly. I know this a somewhat gross oversimplification but there is some truth to it.
I the case of folks like
@georged and Ryan Alden, they do at bare minimum an exact copy but more times than not they provide a product that actually far exceeds the original. Where as most cases a replacement stem of any kind on any high end pipe would actually tank the value of the pipe, collectors don't bat any eye at paying a premium over the even the original collector value for a Dunhill with a replacement stem. After all it's not a pipe with a replacement stem, it's a pipe with a George Dibos stem, thats an upgrade. It's like a Yenco Camaro, it didn't roll out of the factory that way, but it's damn sure worth more that way. It takes a VERY long time to build that kind of cache with the rapidly disappearing group of folks who have the means to pay you what its worth to do the job. The sad fact is that at this point buy the time someone steps in to fill those shoes the industry will likely be dead and gone.
