Puff Daddy
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2007
- Messages
- 6,910
- Reaction score
- 98
We're smokers but we seem to have the collecting bug as well. We start off buying this or that, random additions of multiple styles and makes, finally finding a maker or style or genre that fits our fancy and we're off, creating little collections for the sake of collecting. What was your journey like, where did it take you, and where do you see yourself heading?
I started off collecting odds and ends, everything from inexpensive EBay estates to brand new high grades. After a bit I realized that I didn't like vulcanite, especially old vulcanite. Out went the Dunhills, Charatans and Barlings that I had gathered up. I also started out with more expendable income than I've had the last couple of years (pre children, pre recession) so I was no longer buying S Bang, Hedegaard, and Chonowitsch. I sold off almost all of my high dollar pipes (except the Castellos and a couple of odds and ends) and by the time I was finished I probably had bought and sold over a hundred pipes. I learned a lot along the way.
So what is left? A small rack of Italians, mostly Castello, a couple of Mastro De Paja and Viprati. A rack of odds and ends - a couple of Ashtons, Jeppesons, GRC, IMP meers, a couple of old Brits that I kept just cuz. All of the above are the pipes I kept because they smoke so darned well. They don't represent a focused collection but a culling, the best of the best of what I'd bought over the years. OK, the Catellos are almost a collection, it was intended to be a collection because I love them the best among all makers, but there are only eight of them and too few to be a solid representation of the brand. Maybe some day I'll be able to finish and have a much better representaion of the fine design offered up by the maker, but for now they're out of my price range.
Then there are the Stanwells. About a dozen, showing most of the shapes they do that I like best. A true collection representative of the brand. Fine smokers, all of them. Still a few more shapes that I'd like to aquire, could probably bring that number up to twenty, hang a nice rack on the wall just for them, and be quite pleased with it.
Aside from finishing that, in my forseeable future I can see the means for doing the same with Petersons. They make some fantastic shapes, I've always loved their shapes, but I've always hated their vulcanite and the P lip. Over the years I've bought and subsequently gotten rid of several Petes simply because the stems were, IMHO, crap. But now they make some fine acrylic stems and this changes everything! I got my first a couple of years ago, the Smokers Forums pipe of the year, a Peterson Rosslare with the acrylic faux amber stem. A great pipe. Since then I've managed to get a couple more Petes with Acrylic stems and they are perect. They make enough interesting shapes that I could easily spend the next several years happily hunting them down as the funds for them trickle in. A rack on one wall for a Stanwell Tribute, a rack on the other for a Peterson tribute, all great smokers highlighting two of the best production makers of our time. Sounds like an honorable pursuit 8)
Beyond that? Who knows. Old Caminettos interest me but as of now I have never owned one.
I started off collecting odds and ends, everything from inexpensive EBay estates to brand new high grades. After a bit I realized that I didn't like vulcanite, especially old vulcanite. Out went the Dunhills, Charatans and Barlings that I had gathered up. I also started out with more expendable income than I've had the last couple of years (pre children, pre recession) so I was no longer buying S Bang, Hedegaard, and Chonowitsch. I sold off almost all of my high dollar pipes (except the Castellos and a couple of odds and ends) and by the time I was finished I probably had bought and sold over a hundred pipes. I learned a lot along the way.
So what is left? A small rack of Italians, mostly Castello, a couple of Mastro De Paja and Viprati. A rack of odds and ends - a couple of Ashtons, Jeppesons, GRC, IMP meers, a couple of old Brits that I kept just cuz. All of the above are the pipes I kept because they smoke so darned well. They don't represent a focused collection but a culling, the best of the best of what I'd bought over the years. OK, the Catellos are almost a collection, it was intended to be a collection because I love them the best among all makers, but there are only eight of them and too few to be a solid representation of the brand. Maybe some day I'll be able to finish and have a much better representaion of the fine design offered up by the maker, but for now they're out of my price range.
Then there are the Stanwells. About a dozen, showing most of the shapes they do that I like best. A true collection representative of the brand. Fine smokers, all of them. Still a few more shapes that I'd like to aquire, could probably bring that number up to twenty, hang a nice rack on the wall just for them, and be quite pleased with it.
Aside from finishing that, in my forseeable future I can see the means for doing the same with Petersons. They make some fantastic shapes, I've always loved their shapes, but I've always hated their vulcanite and the P lip. Over the years I've bought and subsequently gotten rid of several Petes simply because the stems were, IMHO, crap. But now they make some fine acrylic stems and this changes everything! I got my first a couple of years ago, the Smokers Forums pipe of the year, a Peterson Rosslare with the acrylic faux amber stem. A great pipe. Since then I've managed to get a couple more Petes with Acrylic stems and they are perect. They make enough interesting shapes that I could easily spend the next several years happily hunting them down as the funds for them trickle in. A rack on one wall for a Stanwell Tribute, a rack on the other for a Peterson tribute, all great smokers highlighting two of the best production makers of our time. Sounds like an honorable pursuit 8)
Beyond that? Who knows. Old Caminettos interest me but as of now I have never owned one.