What Can You Learn about Yourself by Looking at Your Own Pipe Collection?

[Grangerous]

It means I’m a bad spoke in an otherwise good wheel.

My fondness of tapered stem, classic billiards.

Conservative...with views slightly to the right of Clint Eastwood.

 

[telescopes]

Ii can spend several weeks or more thinking about a pipe I’ve seen and whether I really want to purchase it. I was at my brothers house and while in his private study, a place I hadn’t visited in years, I noticed that he and I had some ot the exact pipes and even vintage humidors. We had never discussed these things and I realized that our pipe choices may be expressions resulting from DNA as well. It was a scary thought.

 

[alaskanpiper]

That I need to sell some pipes, I'm not a fan of most rustication, and I prefer stems to be no more than 1/4 bent.

 

[FurCoat]

I tend to aquire classical shapes.

 

[sablebrush52]

What does my collection say about me? Hmmm...
Bat shit crazy? Schizophrenic? On the one hand I have a halfway decent collection of vintage Britwood, very classic stuff like Barling, Sasieni, Comoy, and BBB with pieces going back to the early 1880's. Then I have a number of pipes by American artisan carvers like Piersel, Von Erck, Buthenberg, Alden, etc, and some really wild constructions by Tatum, Cannoy, Talbert, and Fillenwarth.

 

[ChuckMijo]

I have been trying to build a collection of old British pipes. I have come to the conclusion that the quality of the pieces is more important that quantity. Less maybe more. I’d sooner spend a lot of money on one great pipe, then a little on a lot of common pipes.

 

[stokesdale]

That I'm cheap and that I don't really give a crap about much of anything except retirement and fishing.

 

[telescopes]

That I need to sell some pipes, I'm not a fan of most rustication, and I prefer stems to be no more than 1/4 bent.

I wasn’t initially drawn to rusticated, but over the year I’ve discovered how hard I am on pipes, and given that I never get rid of them, rusticated pipes have been the most forgiving of my carelessnesses.

 

[condorlover1]

That I am a deeply anti-social curmudgeon who keeps the company of other curmudgeons who are also weird about their tobacco and pipe tastes. Outside of that I am sure I would be the life and soul of a swingers club!

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Let me think deeper into this...
I do have a lot of Italian pipes, but I don't have many pipes from the same Italian makes. And, the Italian designs that I have are off in proportions. I only have a few English pipes, and the ones I have are not quintessentially English. I have more repeat brands of Danish made pipes, Nording, Neerups, old Stanwells, than other brands. And, the most Hilsons of any other brands. The ones I tend to collect tend to be off a little proportion, making them more fun and Dr. Seussish, playful in their designs. If this says anything about me, it probably says that I am ridiculous in my nature, fun, playful... not confined to rules, or classical in my proportions. Probably more Romantic, and yet conservative in my picks.

Yet, I have more variety in my artisan made pipes, which I always ask for diversity in proportions, lines, extreme play on lines, etc... Which probably says that I am loose with my wallet.

 

[cigrmaster]

I look at my collection and it says you are a collector of classic shapes with Billiards,Dublins, Apples, Brandys, Rhodesians,Bulldogs, pretty much just the basics. I like my pipes to look like a pipe and don't look for many weird shapes. It works for me and I enjoy looking at my classic collection. Rarely do I bother looking for anything very different.

 

[shanez]

Ii can spend several weeks or more thinking about a pipe I’ve seen and whether I really want to purchase it.

I've spent over a year deciding on a pipe. Several actually. Others were a done deal within minutes of seeing them.

Sometimes it's a financial decision and other times it's a visceral reaction.

 

[shanez]

What does my collection say about me? Hmmm...
Bat shit crazy? Schizophrenic? On the one hand I have a halfway decent collection of vintage Britwood, very classic stuff like Barling, Sasieni, Comoy, and BBB with pieces going back to the early 1880's. Then I have a number of pipes by American artisan carvers like Piersel, Von Erck, Buthenberg, Alden, etc, and some really wild constructions by Tatum, Cannoy, Talbert, and Fillenwarth.

I think Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a book about this condition...

 

[sablebrush52]

I look at my collection and it says you are a collector of classic shapes with Billiards,Dublins, Apples, Brandys, Rhodesians,Bulldogs, pretty much just the basics. I like my pipes to look like a pipe and don't look for many weird shapes. It works for me and I enjoy looking at my classic collection. Rarely do I bother looking for anything very different.

Not looking at anything else? Well now we know you're old.

 

[shaneireland]

My collection tells me that I like small Apples, small Billiards, and small bent Dublins. And that I have a lot less money than I otherwise would...

 

[PipeDad33]

It would tell me I am cheap, and I like bent apple and author shapes. Oh, also I started way too late smoking a pipe.

 

[weezell]

Mine tells me I'm about 100 years late on breaking in a new Meerschaum... ?

 

[daveinlax]

I love collecting groups of pipes! I’m never satisfied with having only one.?

 

[Casual]

By the number of as-yet unsmoked ones, it tells me I have more money than time.

 

[cshubhra]

1. 20% of the pipes are smoked 80% of the time. This is of course because I am smoking Meerschaum pipes most of the time to get them color a bit
2. I have pipes at a wide variety of price point - and it follows a Normal Distribution, with average cost of pipe is 100x times the cheapest, and the most expensive 1000x times the cheapest
3. Britain is the country which is most represented in my pipe collection
4. I have pipes from US, Turkey,Britain,Denmark, Italy, Holland,Ireland
5. I like straight and quarter bent the most - yet one of my most favorite pipes is a full bent and does not pass a pipe cleaner
6. Oldest pipe is from 1920-1930 while newest from 2020
7. The number of pipes I buy / month is decreasing
8. Average price I pay per pipe is increasing
9. I enjoy cobs sometimes
10. I don’t have a Morta pipe or a Churchwarden pipe yet
11. Most pipes are either traditional or a variant of traditional shapes
12. I don’t own a Castello, but it will be remediated in the future but may not be in the near future