It seems an easy enough question to answer but if you think on it a bit it's really not. Of course you're a pipe smoker! We're all smokers of pipes but some of here also collect pipes that seldom get smoked and I suspect that there's even some folks here like me who occasionally buy pipes that will likely NEVER get smoked!

So now comes the question of how we define a pipe smoker and a pipe collector. I have good friends who collect pipes that cost several thousand dollars. These pipes are carefully smoked but not very often. The majority of these folks smoke one bowl of tobacco per day and have such large collections that it may take months for a pipe to come up again in their rotatation. Some even buy such elaborate and ornate pipes that to smoke them once would devalue them signifigantly. They sit on racks and are ocassionally taken out to look at and admire. I personally have a half dozen of these and have even felt a pang of guilt for owning something that doesn't get used. It seems a silly indulgence at times but when you start looking at them as an investment and tiny works of art it becomes a bit more palatible.

On the flip side of this are folks who buy pipes strictly to smoke. The true value of owning them weather they be expensive or modest is to smoke them. To own a pipe that doesn't get used at all would be rediculous to them.

I find that I fall somewhere in the middle of these two camps. I do indeed buy pipes that are seldom smoked and I buy pipes like my Stans which are smoked often. I usually average out at 4-5 bowls a day.

So, are you a collector, a smoker or a little bit of both?...

Defiantly a smoker,
Just like I don't own or wouldn't own any firearms that I wont shoot due to their value.
Of course all my pipes are mid grade at best.

Smoker!
I have started a small collection of Kaywoodie 13B's; and that's because to me they are a good yard/driving/working-smoking pipe.
I compare it to pickup trucks, I have always had a "work" truck, I never understood all these folks that buy pickup trucks and NEVER hauled anything in them for fear of SCRATCHING the bed.

I am a pipe smoker, definitely. Being of modest means, utilitarian in values, everything I spend money on has to have a function for me. This is NOT to say that I don't understand people who have the means collecting pipes and not smoking them, it just means that I don't.

I too see pipes as art, however for me, part of that art is the using of the pipe for it's intended purpose; ie combustion of tasty leaf! This makes it 'living art' for me ...

I'm a smoker--I buy pipes, high-end or low-end to get the best smoke. I have a few pipes that are beautiful pieces, but they are also great smokers. I also have a few eye sores, a Dunhill ODA with weak blast and an oxidized stem that is nealry tan, but I know I can smoke lawn clipings in it and they'll smoke sweet and cool.

To have something on a shelf to just look at, or something so wildly designed that it is impossible or close to it, to smoke, doesn't make any sense to me, but to each his own. Maybe in a few years I'll start collecting more as an investment, and will act more like a collector, but for now I'm strictly a smoker.

I'm a pipe smoker, but I have, generally speaking, a collector's mindset, and not just for pipes. (Sneakers, tiki mugs, typefaces, and so on.)

New as I am to the pipe, I would say that if I ever find a collecting focus, I'll be more of a collector, but for now I am a smoker whose enjoyment of a good bowl is heightened by the aesthetics and craft behind the tobacco and the smoking instrument.

To quote Bill Unger of NASPC: If you have one pipe, you're a pipe smoker. If you have more than one pipe, you're a pipe collector.

Smoker and pack rat, definitely.
Collector? I suppose so, but I
only buy pipes to smoke.

I smoke my pipes! that's what they are for, to smoke tobacco! I am lucky enough to own some expensive pipes and I smoke them with relish and pleasure. I think of it like this, if a beautiful woman takes her clothes off for you, are you going to just gape at her? do you buy a hammer and let it sit on your workbench? one of the best aspects of pipes is that they are tools! they should be used. that's my half-cent worth.

I'm strictly pipe smoker: I'll unhesitatingly dispose of all my pipes the day someone invents a better way to smoke pipe tobacco.

Another pipe smoker here, but I do appreciate the artistry of a high end briar.

My collections in everything are to be used and enjoyed. Vintage straight razors, double edge razors, guns, you name it- If it's in my collection, it will be used extensively

My 60+ pipes are strictly for smoking. But did I have the means to collect, I would.