What's the natural death cause of a briar pipe?

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myhyeung

Lurker
Aug 9, 2021
28
66
Hongkong
I own a couple old English pipes made in the twenties, they were probably smoked heavily over the century(stamping buffed out, rim charred), but smoke flawlessly and remain cool with the occasional freight chain. I would honestly expect them to last indefinitely if taken care of. So if a pipe is not burned through, doesn't suffer drops or physical damage, what would cause it to die? Or is immortality expected?
 

condorlover1

Lifer
Dec 22, 2013
7,991
26,606
New York
Terminal stupid tends to kill old pipes. Over reaming, constantly dismantling them which stresses and then wears out the shank/tenons. I've never suffered from 'sour' pipe before but I believe it's a very real issue. I suppose in the final analysis as Jesse our Barling expert once commented to the effect that as briar gets old and drys out it might split or crack if smoked in an overly enthusiastic situation.
 

Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,759
13,781
Humansville Missouri
American (and also English) pipe makers made and sold millions of cheap pipes a year during the Depression years, at what Lord Inverchapel in 1946 lamented was fifty cents and sold by the gross, to be given away as gifts.

And in Washington Missouri, there used to be twenty corn cob pipe factories, selling corn cob pipes by the dozens and by a gross.

One of my legal assistants a few years ago saw my Kaywoodies and said her father smoked that brand, with the shamrock. He’d died a few years earlier.

Larcenously, I asked what became of them, and she said when he’d died the pipes all looked dirty, and they’d tossed them.:)

A whole lot of pipes used to be thrown away and replaced, or trashed when the owner died.

It’s common knowledge that Albert Einstein was a pipe smoker. Him with his pipe are a stock image of him in our minds. His contemporaries claimed he’d smoke one until it got sour or burnt out and buy another.

The frequenters of a pipe forum today are pipe lovers that baby their pipes.

If you picked out one, and smoked it all day, in maybe a year you’d bite through the stem, or it would get sour, or cake up so badly you’d need another one.

But if kept clean, dry, and rotated and cake kept down, and not smoked in the wind, I personally know a late 1940’s ten dollar grade Lee Three Star will smoke cool and sweet for three quarters of a century and counting.
 

ashdigger

Lifer
Jul 30, 2016
11,378
70,055
60
Vegas Baby!!!
Pipe collecting is a relatively recent thing.

My grandfather started smoking pipes in the early 30’s and he smoked pipes all day, every day until his passing in the mid-90’s.

Only 4 pipes were left by him. One from when he was in WW2 that was never smoked when he got home and was found with his war memorabilia, so he probably just forgot about it and the other three were purchased in the mid-80’s.

As a person that collects pipes from the early 1900’s I’ve lost count of how “survivors” were heavily caked and looked like the were never cleaned. Just smoked and tossed in a drawer.

Here’s an American made BBB and the stinger is 100% gooped up.

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sablebrush52

The Bard Of Barlings
Jun 15, 2013
19,621
44,832
Southern Oregon
jrs457.wixsite.com
Believe it or not, briar is wood, and like all wood is subject to the effects of aging. Over time, the exposed areas become oxidized, dry out, become weakened through use, etc. If the wood is protected from the effects of oxidation and light exposure, the aging process is substantially slowed. That's one reason why pipes that were stored in cases, and not left in attics where they can bake at 140˚, or abused by shit head owners, can be remarkably young at a century or more. On the flip side, pipes that have dried out can take on the consistency of particle board, and crumble at a glance.
 

OzPiper

Lifer
Nov 30, 2020
5,756
30,560
71
Sydney, Australia
If looked after and barring actual faults in the briar, they will almost certainly outlive you.

Most of my pipes are estates with a fair number of centenarians. They are all sound with the exception of one (a 1921) which developed a large crack in the shaft on the 1st smoke.
One casualty out of over a hundred is not bad at all.

As @sablebrush52 pointed out, all things undergo senescence, and will eventually go to that bonfire in the sky, but not before they render many decades of service and enjoyment