I’m a huge fan of British pipes. I’ve been wanting to get an Askwith as they are pretty much just contemporary takes on the classics. Some of them he does his own thing and I like that as well. Maybe I’ll have to get one at some point. Other than that, I see no need in pipes that are above 500$. I’d rather get your classic Dunhill than some of these new artisan free hands going for $800 up.
Last night I was drooling over pics of an Chris Askwith morta billiard with a briar stem. I may treat myself in the New Year if the PAD daemon hasn't left me. I've never smoked a morta, and it would be nice to have one in the rotation - especially a really good and beautiful one.
The only other kind of pipe I have a serious hankering for, is a clay with the bowl moulded in the likeness of the late William Ewart Gladstone, a former British Prime Minister during the latter half of the nineteenth century. As I frequently portray a late Victorian farm bailiff on a large estate I would have had every reason to dislike the man - not least because Gladstone was virulently opposed to smoking. Such clays were very popular at the time for exactly the same reason that Bellarmine wine jugs once were, that satirised the austere and abstemious Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino (1542-1621) and his opposition to drinking. Though an actual antique would be nice to have and for display only, I could really do with a whole set of Gladstone clays because the damn things seem to break on me at the slightest provocation.
