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Smoking the Rotation
PappyJoe
Master
Coming soon to a pipe forum near you....
I was sitting at my desk and looking at all the pipes I have hanging on the wall or sitting on shelves and realized it's been a long time since I've smoked some of them.
Where some pipe smokers would rightly say, "It's time to thin the herd.", I've decided to take a different tack. Starting on Friday, Oct. 1, I am going to smoke every pipe I own (this will exclude the 18 clay pipes in my possession that were donated to the New Orleans Pipe Club as door prizes.)
I have:
9 Meerschaums
5 Clays
5 Corn Cobs (Missouri Meerschaums)
1 Gourd Calabash
2 Pear Root
42 Briars.
I will start posting photos on Friday.
I was sitting at my desk and looking at all the pipes I have hanging on the wall or sitting on shelves and realized it's been a long time since I've smoked some of them.
Where some pipe smokers would rightly say, "It's time to thin the herd.", I've decided to take a different tack. Starting on Friday, Oct. 1, I am going to smoke every pipe I own (this will exclude the 18 clay pipes in my possession that were donated to the New Orleans Pipe Club as door prizes.)
I have:
9 Meerschaums
5 Clays
5 Corn Cobs (Missouri Meerschaums)
1 Gourd Calabash
2 Pear Root
42 Briars.
I will start posting photos on Friday.
Comments
Are you going to smoke them in any particular order or just go with the 'mood' that day?
Yes.
Well, maybe a combination of the two. I'm probably going to intersperse the non-briar among the briar.
Sounds like a plan! I'll be looking forward to seeing your collection (in action)!
Rest pipe good, using same pipe bad!
Seriously though, my personal opinion is that once the resin (and/or cake) gets saturated with slobber/spit/condensation, the pipe simply doesn't smoke as well nor does it taste as good. Cobs are even worse as the cob itself can get soggy. I generally rotate out my cobs every couple of days, but may go 3 or 4 days with my briars.
I am going to politely disagree with your "Rest pipe good, using same pipe bad!" theory in part because my grandfather smoked the same pipes repeatedly throughout the day. He had maybe four pipes and smoked all four everyday. I guess that might be resting the pipes though. Of course, he only smoked George Washington until the stopped making it.
As for the cake getting saturated with slobber/spit/condensation, that's why the pipes I smoke all get a good cleaning at least once a month to keep them fresh. I've never had a cob get soggy but then again when they get "bad" I just throw them out and buy new ones.
You are absolutely correct! My father never had more than a few pipes either, so your point is spot on.
I guess that's probably where my comment comes in...I smoke probably 5 or 6 bowls a day and slobber like a stuck pig, LOL, so for me, rotation is really the only option to make sure they dry out properly.
I often think that the inventor of the "only smoke a pipe once and then let it rest for at least 24 hours" theory was a pipe shop owner looking to sell more pipes. Sort of like the jewelry stores that tell men they should spend the equivalent of three months salary on an engagement ring or you don't really love her.
Right there with ya buddy🙂
I smoked a lot of Backwoods during my active duty days when "deployed" for hurricanes or oil/chemical spill response. I knew one guy that bought Backwoods and then cut them up for chewing.
Decided to start a day early!
After responding to @Zouave on another discussion, I chose this Bruyere Garantie pipe I found in an antique shop five or six years ago for $30.
Bruyere Garantie was stamped on a lot of French and German pipes in the 50s and 60s. The research I have done makes me think that the ones made in Germany were basically low cost pipes made for the tourist market and resembled the pipes popular in the Bavarian region before World War II. This particular model is what some call a "Hunter" but I've also seen ones with long cherrywood stems and a separate bowl called a Hunter.
I understood that Hunter style pipes originally had porcelain bowls. Is that not so?
Nah. It's not that big. It only holds about two good pinches of tobacco. It lasted about 50 minutes before I dumped the ash.
@motie2
I've always seen the porcelain bowl pipes called Bavarian or Hungarian. Most of the pipes found with porcelain bowls were actually made for U.S. military personnel and tourists after WWII but the style may actually dates back to Hussars Light Calvary of the mid-15th century. There is conjecture that the long pipes were used by the cavalry so they could smoke a pipe without getting off their horse. The rider could just lean over and his servant could remove one bowl and replace it with another filled with tobacco and then light it. Some believe that these were the origin of churchwarden pipes also.
This article calls them "Traditional German Porcelain Pipes" https://www.1stdibs.com/furniture/more-furniture-collectibles/collectibles-curiosities/tobacco-accessories/collection-13-traditional-german-porcelain-tobacco-pipes/id-f_16346742/#:~:text=A compositional long stem pipe having a porcelain,down to a small tube at the base.
Here's another informative article from the Southeastern Antiquing & Collecting magazine. http://www.go-star.com/antiquing/porcelain-pipes.htm
Reborn Pipes calls them Tyrolean pipes. https://rebornpipes.com/tag/german-tyrolean-pipe/
As always, thank you for sharing your knowledge.
And just to confuse us more, one article on pipedia.org shows a photo of a similar pipe by Bru-Bru (a Swiss company that went out of business in the 1970s) called.....
A Swiss Style.
Curiously complex family of old world pipes…..
First up is not really a pipe in my rotation but a small clay I like to use for sampling. I opened a tine of KK Meistermischung Nr. 22. There's not a lot of information I can find on the blend, but it is a Danish aromatic of black cavendish and golden Virginias flavored with cherry.
The first bowl was in a small Marken clay pipe.
While a lot of pipe smokers tend to look down on pear wood pipes, Mr. Brog makes some nice one. The bowl doesn't get overly hot to hold and it's light weight enough for easy clenching. The reason I don't smoke it often is that I don't particularly like the thinner stems.