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An Interesting Old Book
thebadgerpiper
Master
in General
While browsing my local Half Price Books, I discovered a treasure in their antique and rare book section. I'm always on the look out for books on pipes, but HPB usually doesn't have any in stock. I can find books on cigars in their tobacco and coffee section, but hardly ever ones on pipes. This time, however, I was in luck. They had a copy of Georges Herment's The Pipe.
I haven't read much of The Pipe yet, but it's a pretty good, informal book on pipes and pipe tobacco. Nothing too fancy like Richard Hacker's book, but still it's a book on pipes.
The interesting part comes not from the words in the book itself, but what's on it. There's an address tag in the inside cover for Iwan Ries, the biggest pipe tobacco shop in Chicago. It's not surprising to find it, since IR has been open for a long time, and I'm not too far from it. However, there's another fascinating detail on the first page. There's two written messages located there.
1) "To my favorite smoker- with love, Rita. 2/20/60"
2) "I can't top this dedication. Enjoy my friend! - Will 5/7/14"
In a strange bit of coincidence, the first dedication is on the date of International Pipe Smoking Day. I'm not sure how long IPSD has been around, so it's probably a neat bit of timing. Still, this makes the book at least almost 60 years old from the date of the first dedication.
I haven't written in it yet, but I'll be sure to keep the tradition going. Anyhow, hope some of you out there found this as interesting as I did.
I haven't read much of The Pipe yet, but it's a pretty good, informal book on pipes and pipe tobacco. Nothing too fancy like Richard Hacker's book, but still it's a book on pipes.
The interesting part comes not from the words in the book itself, but what's on it. There's an address tag in the inside cover for Iwan Ries, the biggest pipe tobacco shop in Chicago. It's not surprising to find it, since IR has been open for a long time, and I'm not too far from it. However, there's another fascinating detail on the first page. There's two written messages located there.
1) "To my favorite smoker- with love, Rita. 2/20/60"
2) "I can't top this dedication. Enjoy my friend! - Will 5/7/14"
In a strange bit of coincidence, the first dedication is on the date of International Pipe Smoking Day. I'm not sure how long IPSD has been around, so it's probably a neat bit of timing. Still, this makes the book at least almost 60 years old from the date of the first dedication.
I haven't written in it yet, but I'll be sure to keep the tradition going. Anyhow, hope some of you out there found this as interesting as I did.
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