You've seen these advertised on eBay. And you've noticed whomever in China put them up for sale doesn't know English enough to describe them. Admit it. You wrinkled up your nose and pass on them. Are they even real pipes? Or are they stage props?
I'd only seen one review on Amazon, and it bashed them as bubble pipes. But there must be a difference between what that guy got and mine, because mine are awesome smokers. In fact the largest of the 6 pc set, a half bent just replaced my go-to briar to become my absolute favorite. Hands down. (At least for now. Maybe it will crap out in time).
The purchase started out alcohol-related. (Did you wonder?) I'd had too much scotch one night, and eBay and I are bosom buddies if the computer is in my hands when the sobriety scale tips. (Yeah. It's happened before.) Only $39.99 for SIX PIPES??? Whoa! Whadda YOU think, Mr. Glenmorangie? Yes? Okay, I'm in. (Glen, a true Scotsman at heart, never says no as long as it isn't his own money).
Come dawn the next day I was deep in buyer's remorse. I figured I'd just thrown $39.99 away. I must have gone back to that posting 30 times the first two days looking for clues that I didn't just buy crap. But the posting and Google searches offered not a hint of reassurance. There's just nothing on them. (Which is why I'm writing now). it sure wasn't looking good. After weeks of dreading the moment they came, they finally arrived -- and I was just floored!
First, no, they didn't look great. They were classic pipe shape knockoffs. The hardwood grain (birch?) was hidden by murky brown stain. Some small dents and blemishes, but nothing too bad for $7 a piece.
I was interested in the half bent right away. I liked its shape and the big, hefty bowl. It was 3/4" wide by 1-1/16" deep. Bottom was nearly flat. From center of bottom to side, it came up just a 16th of an inch to be 1" deep, exactly. Draft hole was neatly centered and just met the bottom, precisely drilled.
These come with some kind of lining in their bowls. Can't tell it it's clay, mortar, or pipe mud. But it's a thin gray, sandy-feeling lining on sides and bottom. So instead of a draught of "heated lumber" in my first draw, no -- I got a beautifully cool, dense, dry cloud of thick, 100% pure tobacco. Delicious.
I first lit up a drier Virginia blend. Intending to just get a char light, but it actually took well and just needed a light tamp to continue on -- a one-match start. The draft is wide but just a tad restricted. I didn't understand that right away, because I hadn't opened it to notice the stinger. In short, you're not sucking through a straw. You can tell you're pulling on something, just a little resistance. Just a touch.
The coolness and dryness of the smoke, no matter how hard and frequently I pulled on it, is probably due in part to that stinger in the stem. When I first saw it, after having difficulty pushing a pipe cleaner in then taking the stem off, I thought, "Well, that's gotta go. I'm chucking it." But when I played a bit with it, I found it removes easily for cleaning. It is slotted and permits free draft, giving just that very little restriction. But it does a delightful job on mellowing out the smoke.
That bowl done, I didn't want to stop. So I tried a moist aromatic. It loved that, too. And the flavor again, like the tobacco *meant* to be, unadulterated. Freed to be itself. And I pulled as hard and frequently as I could to try to "hot box" it. But I could not make it gurgle. Well, that's not true about the gurgle. Not 100% gurgle free. There was a hint of a gurgle-on-the-verge. At one point I felt that little vibration, that little pre-gurgle ripple. So I chased after it, trying to bring it on. I knew it would be on the next draw, but... it wasn't. So I pulled harder. Then again and again. But it was gone and I couldn't seduce it further.
The pipe never got hot in my hand. Not bad for a wood, right? Probably that lining again, insulating the exterior from the heat. Plus, the half bent has a thick-walled bowl.
More than an hour and now two bowls in to my introduction to the Vogue Noble Knight half bent, smoking it abusively to find any faults, I cleaned it. That little stinger had done an awesome job. It was holding just a few soaking wet particles of tobacco, keeping them from being vacuumed up the stem in my healthy pulls. The slots had done their job throughout, allowing unrestricted flow in spite of them.
Now bowl three (yes, I was slightly dizzy, but thrilled with this thing), I went to my favorite daily drugstore tobacco: Blender's Gold Premium Natural. It was brilliant! This is the best it has ever tasted. Very nice.
In the three bowls, I never tasted the pipe, only the tobacco. The bowl never heated up much past my own palm's heat. The smoke was dense and cool and dry. Ember stayed even and held well in my normal filling technique. My tongue did not burn in spite of abusing technique. I didn't get a lip-whipping of acidic pipe vomit, either. The smoke stayed cool, dry, billowy, pleasant, to the bottom of the bowl.
Bowl cleaned nice, too. I wonder if I'll get a cake built in this. Not much "took" to the gray lining. Stinger cleaned up easy. Stem was relatively clean after two bowls, when I first cleaned. Nice and clean after the third bowl. Cleaner than my other pipes after a smoke.
So I'd say, if you wanted a classic-looking set of pipes because you just can't stand a cob, then pay a dollar more per pipe and get this set of Vogue Nobles for a simple, un-brag-worthy rotation. They're delicious!
How long will they last? No idea. Will the mortise and tenon go to heck in short time? Don't know yet. How long with that cheap stem last? -- probably as long as a cob's, right?
I just know I'm not sorry I bought them and I'm not afraid to let a newbie have his/her first smoke on one of the other new pipes. I think that's a really good use for them -- something to let a newb try pipe smoking on without the complications or investment entailed by expensive pipes. Don't need breaking in, and don't weird a person out, putting someone else's stem in their mouth.
Two thumbs up on an inexpensive, pleasant surprise from China.
Vogue Noble Knight wooden durable 6 pcs pipe set
I'd only seen one review on Amazon, and it bashed them as bubble pipes. But there must be a difference between what that guy got and mine, because mine are awesome smokers. In fact the largest of the 6 pc set, a half bent just replaced my go-to briar to become my absolute favorite. Hands down. (At least for now. Maybe it will crap out in time).
The purchase started out alcohol-related. (Did you wonder?) I'd had too much scotch one night, and eBay and I are bosom buddies if the computer is in my hands when the sobriety scale tips. (Yeah. It's happened before.) Only $39.99 for SIX PIPES??? Whoa! Whadda YOU think, Mr. Glenmorangie? Yes? Okay, I'm in. (Glen, a true Scotsman at heart, never says no as long as it isn't his own money).
Come dawn the next day I was deep in buyer's remorse. I figured I'd just thrown $39.99 away. I must have gone back to that posting 30 times the first two days looking for clues that I didn't just buy crap. But the posting and Google searches offered not a hint of reassurance. There's just nothing on them. (Which is why I'm writing now). it sure wasn't looking good. After weeks of dreading the moment they came, they finally arrived -- and I was just floored!
First, no, they didn't look great. They were classic pipe shape knockoffs. The hardwood grain (birch?) was hidden by murky brown stain. Some small dents and blemishes, but nothing too bad for $7 a piece.
I was interested in the half bent right away. I liked its shape and the big, hefty bowl. It was 3/4" wide by 1-1/16" deep. Bottom was nearly flat. From center of bottom to side, it came up just a 16th of an inch to be 1" deep, exactly. Draft hole was neatly centered and just met the bottom, precisely drilled.
These come with some kind of lining in their bowls. Can't tell it it's clay, mortar, or pipe mud. But it's a thin gray, sandy-feeling lining on sides and bottom. So instead of a draught of "heated lumber" in my first draw, no -- I got a beautifully cool, dense, dry cloud of thick, 100% pure tobacco. Delicious.
I first lit up a drier Virginia blend. Intending to just get a char light, but it actually took well and just needed a light tamp to continue on -- a one-match start. The draft is wide but just a tad restricted. I didn't understand that right away, because I hadn't opened it to notice the stinger. In short, you're not sucking through a straw. You can tell you're pulling on something, just a little resistance. Just a touch.
The coolness and dryness of the smoke, no matter how hard and frequently I pulled on it, is probably due in part to that stinger in the stem. When I first saw it, after having difficulty pushing a pipe cleaner in then taking the stem off, I thought, "Well, that's gotta go. I'm chucking it." But when I played a bit with it, I found it removes easily for cleaning. It is slotted and permits free draft, giving just that very little restriction. But it does a delightful job on mellowing out the smoke.
That bowl done, I didn't want to stop. So I tried a moist aromatic. It loved that, too. And the flavor again, like the tobacco *meant* to be, unadulterated. Freed to be itself. And I pulled as hard and frequently as I could to try to "hot box" it. But I could not make it gurgle. Well, that's not true about the gurgle. Not 100% gurgle free. There was a hint of a gurgle-on-the-verge. At one point I felt that little vibration, that little pre-gurgle ripple. So I chased after it, trying to bring it on. I knew it would be on the next draw, but... it wasn't. So I pulled harder. Then again and again. But it was gone and I couldn't seduce it further.
The pipe never got hot in my hand. Not bad for a wood, right? Probably that lining again, insulating the exterior from the heat. Plus, the half bent has a thick-walled bowl.
More than an hour and now two bowls in to my introduction to the Vogue Noble Knight half bent, smoking it abusively to find any faults, I cleaned it. That little stinger had done an awesome job. It was holding just a few soaking wet particles of tobacco, keeping them from being vacuumed up the stem in my healthy pulls. The slots had done their job throughout, allowing unrestricted flow in spite of them.
Now bowl three (yes, I was slightly dizzy, but thrilled with this thing), I went to my favorite daily drugstore tobacco: Blender's Gold Premium Natural. It was brilliant! This is the best it has ever tasted. Very nice.
In the three bowls, I never tasted the pipe, only the tobacco. The bowl never heated up much past my own palm's heat. The smoke was dense and cool and dry. Ember stayed even and held well in my normal filling technique. My tongue did not burn in spite of abusing technique. I didn't get a lip-whipping of acidic pipe vomit, either. The smoke stayed cool, dry, billowy, pleasant, to the bottom of the bowl.
Bowl cleaned nice, too. I wonder if I'll get a cake built in this. Not much "took" to the gray lining. Stinger cleaned up easy. Stem was relatively clean after two bowls, when I first cleaned. Nice and clean after the third bowl. Cleaner than my other pipes after a smoke.
So I'd say, if you wanted a classic-looking set of pipes because you just can't stand a cob, then pay a dollar more per pipe and get this set of Vogue Nobles for a simple, un-brag-worthy rotation. They're delicious!
How long will they last? No idea. Will the mortise and tenon go to heck in short time? Don't know yet. How long with that cheap stem last? -- probably as long as a cob's, right?
I just know I'm not sorry I bought them and I'm not afraid to let a newbie have his/her first smoke on one of the other new pipes. I think that's a really good use for them -- something to let a newb try pipe smoking on without the complications or investment entailed by expensive pipes. Don't need breaking in, and don't weird a person out, putting someone else's stem in their mouth.
Two thumbs up on an inexpensive, pleasant surprise from China.
Vogue Noble Knight wooden durable 6 pcs pipe set
