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Some of Tinder Box pipes are quite nice... Like this Verona
rumrum4me
Professor
In pipe smoking circles most are aware of Tinder Box pipes that are made by high end pipes makers, like the Charatan made Unique, and Mauro Armellinis made Verona and Napoli. The pipes stamped Verona and Napoli are supplied by Armellini, although are probably considered sub-brands or even seconds. I've had a couple of original Mauro Armellini pipes before, but found the drilling was a little restricted, especially by the stem. I didn't want to mess them up fussing with them, so I sold them along with the knowledge of what the issue was. Years later I bought an estate Napoli that smoked fine with no issues, but I ended up just not liking the looks of the pipe. Recently I found this Verona on ebay for a buy it now of $15, and the shape looked ok, but it needed some real work. It was filthy and I have never! ever, had a pipe with cake build up like this. It was like cement mixed with granite or something. Literally took me a half an hour to ream out the bowl. The good news is that the pipe cleaned up real nice, and had a nice dark green lucite stem. It was stamped Virgin which usually have no finish or stain, so I only cleaned, polished and waxed the bowl. I usually don't like colored lucite stems, but this one looks rather nice with the color of the briar, and surprise, surprise, it smokes better than the original Armellinis did too. Go figure.
Comments
I have had a couple of estate pipes that had a cake of cement in them too. I actually had to carefully use a small drill bit and work up to get a normal reamer to work. I think it might have been an “old codger blend”, maybe Velvet or Sir Walter Raleigh? The aroma was sweet. It was definitely not a Latakia....that stuff is soft and full of tar, at least the estates I have experienced.