pamountainman -
Well, as promised, here some pics of my pipes and some info:
This was my first pipe, sorry I don't have a better picture (had to search the files for this one), the stem broke and it's currently getting repaired. It's "freestanding" (sits/stands on it's own), machine made, sandblasted ("rough") briar from La Rocca, made in Italy. My friends call it "The Professor" as it's a classic professor's pipe and, well, at the time I got it I was working as a college professor...cliche, but fitting I presume. Good smoking, not the coolest smoking pipe, but cooler than some of my others. I actually received this as a wedding party gift from a close friend who was getting married. He's an avid pipe smoker who often travels to Europe. His gift to five of his closest 'bro' friends was a pipe which he picked to fit our individual personalities (ie., why I got the professor, why our ex-Marine friend got a bulldog, another friend a classic churchwarden, and our one 'questionable' but good longtime bud got a stubby nose warmer [long story, you're better off NOT knowing the details]), a leather, suede-linned, 2-pipe bag that has a sewn-in silicone storage area for tobacco, and our choice of one aromatic and one English tobacco. This pipe retails for about $100.
My second pipe; a Britannia in the classic "bulldog" style, machine made in England, smooth briar. This is probably my 2nd favorite pipe, good smoking, again cool but not the coolest smoking pipe. This pipe retails for about $85.
The third pipe I added to my collection; the long-lost twin Britannia to my smooth "bulldog"; this one is the same but with a darker sandblasted ("rough") finish. Again, machine made in England. This pipe smokes a little hotter than it's clean-shaven twin. I only use it for English tobaccos (more on that later). This pipe retails for about $65 (less than it's smooth twin; you'll find that briar with more defined grain (potentially more visually appealing) become smooth, and chunks of briar that have less grain definition or have more imperfections become sandblasted). Rough or sandblasted pipes are usually cheaper than their identical siblings.
These two corncobs are my "junk pipes". Don't get me wrong, they serve their purpose and I enjoy them in my rotation, but they are pretty much disposable. The one with the green band; yep, that's colored electrical tape. After a while the stem gets loose and tends to fall off, an easy fix with some tape. I smoke these until they break, burn through, or whatever. At $7 each at the local drug store, they're nothing more than extra pipes to try out new tobaccos, have a quick smoke from, or whatever. These particular ones are made by Missouri Meerschaum (located in Washington, MO).
...And the best for last...THIS is my #1 pipe! Period! It's a freestanding, HANDMADE, Tim West pipe, smooth briar with a plateau top (notice the top of the pipe is left rough, although the pipe itself is smooth). The pipe retails for $325, you can find it online for about $285, I picked it up when our local pipe shop was closing, on the last day they were open, for $68.37 OTD, after about an hour and a half of haggling/debate/and a few bowls of tobacco with the shop manager. My best friend came up with the perfect name for it; The Judge. I don't name all my pipes, but after a while they do get their rightfully deserved titles. He named it as such for the obvious gavel resemblance, but more-so because this is a pipe for times of great debate when a philosophical decision has to be made. It's earned this title many times over.
I will tell you this; it puts all my pipes to shame. It smokes so cool it's like it's not even lit (although you can tell it is from the voluminous thunderclouds bellowing out of your mouth). It's smokes so smoothly it makes all my other briars look like $7 corncobs, and it never goes out while you're smoking it. If you set it down for 15 min, you may have to puff it for a little bit to get it back, but no need for matches or a lighter. It smokes more evenly than my other pipes (a lot of how even a bowl burns is due to how you pack it, but the design has great influence as well), and remaining ash is literally dust, not chunks of unburned or half-burned tobacco. To give you an idea of the difference, smoking the same tobacco out of each of these pipes tastes totally different and has a totally different "mouth feel" how the tobacco enters and circulates in your mouth. It was my first handmade pipe, and I'll tell you that my next purchase will be handmade as well...there's a HECK OF A DIFFERENCE, and it's worth every penny of that difference!
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So, now that you've seen my lineup, I ask what you're after and where you'd like to go? If you want to get started with pipe smoking I recommend beginning with something more than a cobb, but less than a handmade briar. A good machine made briar (I'd guess as low as $40, but more likely between $60-80) will afford you a good smoke, a quality pipe, and time to learn all the [strike]tricks and secrets[/strike] skills of pipe smoking. There's so much that goes into how to properly load a bowl, how you draw on the pipe, how you clean it, how you properly let the pipe cool before you smoke another bowl in the same pipe, etc. that it's best to learn on things that are more like good 'ol Ford trucks, rather than Fiats or Ferraris. If your Fiat breaks all the time, it's no fun to drive, if you drive your Ferrari every day, it's going to hurt when you get it scratched or when you break it, but that good 'ol Ford, heck, it'll run forever.
Anyway, if you, or if any fellow TBers here would like to chat about anything pipe-related, let's have at it, this is my favorite hobby, second only to fishing.
Good luck and I'm off to have a bowl before I begin my next task. Here's another pipe smoking quote that I truly love:
"
There can be no doubt that smoking nowadays is largely a miserable automatic business. People use tobacco without ever taking an intelligent interest in it. They do not experiment, compare, fit the tobacco to the occasion. A man should always be pleasantly conscious of the fact that he is smoking." -John Boynton Priestley