The Handlebar Club Forum

Three of my favorite pipes, running the gamut from a Ben Wade Unicorn Fawn hand made by Preben Holm, a Falcon Standard with Dublin bowl and a Missouri Meerschaum.

Kevin great collection you got there. Love that Ben Wade Unicorn and the stand you have with it. How does it smoke? Since I haven't posted one of me with a pipe here's one for ya. I just started a couple of months ago after I quit smoking cigarettes. Ok, maybe one bad habit for another but I'm really enjoy smoking a pipe, it's nowhere as expensive and since I only smoke about a bowl a day (if that) it can't be as bad for me as smoking cigarettes every day, all day long.

Good stuff!

nice pipes, Kevin- I'm a fan of the freehand pipes, myself, and count 2 freehands by Eric Nording in my collection. I've probably given away more pipes than are currently in my collection, but I really think that someone's first pipe should be a gift and/or a hand-me-down. As it is, I think I have about 7 or 8 pipes (maybe more) laying around that I smoke occasionally.

TheHotIron- I'm curious if you've found anything about the manufacturer of the pipe with the large "S" in the middle of 1915. I was thinking that could be from Stanwell or Savinelli, but that wouldn't really match their crests. Savinelli has been around since 1876 or something like that, while Stanwell was started in 1942. Those are the only two makers I can think of who use an "S" as even part of their maker's mark.

Bearwolf56- nice pic. My next pipe will be a similar bulldog shape. Nice tweed vest, too. My girlfriend gave me a nice wool vest for my birthday, and she likes the smell of pipe smoke on it.

Smoking my 1920's German Briar.
Just got done working outside this evening....

It's a warm spring day in Western Australia and after an afternoon out it was nice to come home and pull out a pipe. It's been a great moustache day and I settled in with the Egg Nog blend from Hearth and Home.



This pipe is a Brebbia I picked up a few years ago.

I'm smoking an early pipe with a horn stem. Just came in from the cold....

TheHotIron,the mustache looks great.it is really filling in.cheers,scottyb

Scottyb,...thank you, it's getting there!
I was laughing at my 88 yr. old barber a few days ago when he smiled and blurted out,...

"We're gonna cut that mustache off and stick it on top of your head back here!...hahaha!"

Kidding me about my hair thinning!

I said give it a few years so we could get some more to work with! :-O

My barber tells me he is going to cut it off too... (just kidding of course).

Nassik,
Noticed you said you had a Brebbia pipe - what are your thoughts on it? I've a calabash in mind to buy as an early Christmas present for myself, but haven't had a Brebbia before - mainly Peterson, Comoy and Big Bens. Are they a good smoke from the get go or do they require a bit of break in?
Regards from the cool NE US,
Eric

Fine Art for pipe-smokers - Sultan3

I felt compelled to jump in and show my pipe, as I selected my pipe (I only have one) because of the small bowl and short smoke (about 20 min. or so). It is a Butz-Choquin Aubad. I bought it back when I was a university student and spent a year in Nice, France. I oggled its beautiful form and lovely dark green tint every day as I walked past the tobacco shop near my apartment. Finally, at the end of my year, I walked in and bought it. It was kind of expensive, but sooo lovely!

My grandfather was a pipe smoker, so I have warm associations with the action and aroma of pipe smoking. When I was in my first year of university, I bought the complete annotated stories of Sherlock Holmes. As I read, I felt more and more compelled to smoke a pipe. So I went down to the nearest drug store and said, "show me your cheepest pipe."

It was a straight. So I bought the bent for two dollars more. Back then I smoked flavoured tobaccos...now Mac Baren Original Choice and Mixture (Scottish blend). That first pipe-smoking phase only lasted for a few months and I have no idea where that pipe has got to.

Back to my Butz-Choquin. So like I said, I bought it when I was in university and it quickly became a party favourite, with everyone posing for a picture with the pipe clenched between their teeth. Eventually, the stem was punctured with a bite-hole. So I put the pipe away and thought about getting it fixed someday. Well, after years of waiting, that someday finally came this summer when I was home in Canada visiting family! I found a small town pipemaker by the name of Jack Reid (http://www.jackreid.ca/) who made me a replacement stem - exactly like the old one! Hooray! My pipe was whole again! So I smoked it every day after dinner all summer - but now, back in a country where tobacco costs more than gold, I think I'll take a little break when my last pouch of tobacco runs out... I still have some cigars left from duty-free

I'm the kind of guy who loves to fiddle around with mechanical devices (and have made it my life's work), so I find the metal-stemmed Falcon pipe to be very practical. I can take it apart and clean it after every use and easily make little dry rings for under the bowl. Just wrap a pipe cleaner around a tube, cut the spiral into rings and presto.

It's not fancy, although the burl on the bowl is quite figured. I use mine in the shop where it gets knocked around plenty. Got hands covered with machine oil whilst working on the lathe and need a relight? No problem, it's made to be used and not coddled.

I even light it with a little Prest-o-lite torch at the bench, and since my aim isn't always so good, I get a little char on the bowl rim now and then. I just sand it off and buff it out again. I've done this a dozen times with the bowl pictured. Of course the bowl gets a little shorter after every dressing, so decades from now the capacity will be about three stands of tobacco!

No maker, but the hallmark on the band makes it from 1941.

With my only and favorite pipe. Fitting for the Southern US!