Tell us what your favorite pipe is, and how long you've had it. Not your best looking or most expensive, but that one special pipe that always delivers a great smoke.
Chacom Salsa 297 Smooth Canadian.
This is the third pipe I've bought and I've had it less than a year; nine months or so. This is the pipe that most reminds me of my grandfather and the times we spent on Lake Temiskaming fishing for Pickerel.
This is my morning pipe and I love to start the day with something smokey like a Latakia/Oriental. These days I'm smoking through a tin of Frog Morton On The Bayou.
My Savinelli 645 bent apple short pipe. I've had it 3 years and I only smoke Seattle Pipe Club Mississippi River in it these days because it smokes that tobacco so well. Love the shape, the look and it fits so well in the hand and is easy to clinch if I choose. Such a great pipe for the low price of $50 (at the time of purchase).
My Savinelli 904 Alligator. My dad was smoking it the last time I talked to him before he passed away a few years ago, and it burns Old Dark Fired like a dream. With his passing, I am the old man of the family, and owning and smoking that pipe gives me the feeling of taking up that mantle.
A Hilson Maestro that was given to me as a Christmas present by my wife (then girlfriend) in 1979. Not only does it have sentimental value for me, but it smokes great.
My smooth Peterson XL315 I bought for $35 from Marty Pulver's when I first started smoking- 2 years ago. My grandfather had one when I was a kid.
It's not pretty but it smokes VaPer's fantastically. One a side note, I have an identical one (also from Marty) in a rusticated finish and it doesn't smoke VaPers well at all, but light Englishes sing in it. *shrug* Which is why I don't give a TON of credit to matching shapes with tobaccos. Seems the individual pipes make that choice on their own.
Now I just want a Sandblasted one so I have a nice trio, but all I keep findings are the bit smaller 305s or they've got plips.
It's very difficult to choose when one has 96 pipes, it's like choosing between my children (I raised 9 of 12). Every time someone makes a post like this, I have a different answer! But I will play anyway. I used to hate Straight Virginia blends, and had half a pound of Jack Peterson's Old Dominion that tasted like ash in every pipe I owned. Then I won an auction on the bay for a Peterson Grafton 999 from Romania:
Turned out to be a 9mm filter pipe. So I got some filters from the local B&M that carried them, and gave it a go with the Old Dominion. Talk about a great smoke! Opened up an entire new world of tobacco for me. Since then I have acquired a few more 9mm pipes, but the Grafton is the first one I reach for when it is Virginia time.
On a side note, I obtained the pipe 2 years before I started working in Romania, and I have found 2 B&M stores in Constanta alone. Unfortunately, neither carries any tobacco's that I can't get here in the states. Gibraltar, on the other hand, is the Mecca of Sam Gawith and Gawith Hoggarth tobaccos.
My best smoker is probably my Stanwell Zebrano, which I mostly smoke Va/Per blends in. I'm still quite fond of my Bjarne Viking, even though it's prone to gurgling - it was my first pipe, so there's some sentimental attachment there.
Sasieni 4 dot walnut. I actually just won this pipe at my local pipe club meeting about 2 months ago. It's from the late 50's and is in great condition. The weight and balance is amazing and it just feels great in my hand. It smokes like a dream as well.
A meerschaum my wife gave to me while we were still courting 40 years past. I smoke it rarely as the bowl is too small for a satisfactory smoke. Not a pipe I would have purchased myself. But, it is a reminder of grand times and companionship. It sits on special rest, so placed as tp nearly always in my sight-line in my wee office, next to a couple of evocative photos of "herself."
I have two.
A Comoy Sandblast billiard, shape 64, from the 1950s. I think I traded a Stanwell for it at Iwan Ries. Anything with latakia tastes great in this thing. I even burn a bowl of Virginias once in a while for a change. I can smoke this back to back with only a cleaner between and it's still good.
A Comoy Redbark apple, shape 368, pretty recent. I bought this for maybe $40 from a seller on smokersforums 6 or 7 years back. I'm not a fan of apples, and the pipe isn't particularly pretty. But it's the pipe I lean on the hardest with Virginias, and it doesn't balk.
I think my favorite pipe is often the one I am enjoying at the moment. Not every smoke is optimal, so it doesn't
happen every bowl, but when things go well, that's the way it works.
Otherwise, I'd say something like, oh, it's the Ser Jacopo Dublin, no the Ferndown bent billiard, no the Peterson
Around the World bulldog, no the Luciano blast billiard, no .... etc. etc.
This Pipeworks pipe is drilled wrong and has some monstrous fills, but I love it. It's light, nicely balanced and the funnel-shaped bowl is easy to load and perfect for the burley blends I start the morning with.
1935 Dunhill for flakes and a 1986 Ashton Dublin with a big group 6 bowl for long relaxing smokes. Ser Jacapo with a huge Rhodesian bowl for lat/orientals.