How long before a new pipe feels like yours?

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FairlyStable

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Hi, all. I recently picked up a couple of inexpensive, but nice, estate Charatans and a new Stanwell. It has been great fun getting acquainted with them! It got me thinking about the process by which a pipe comes to feel like ones own. It seems that it does not take very long for me. If I have bought well and the pipe is a good smoker and really suits me in shape, aesthetics, hand feel, and bit comfort, a few bowls is all it takes and I really don’t notice a difference to comfort time between new and estate pipes.

What is the process like for you? How long does it take before a new-to-you pipe feels like your own?
 
It's usually a pretty smooth transition except if I get an estate that is
carrying a strong smell of the previous owners tobacco.I smoke mainly
Virginias,if I get a pipe that was smoked with heavy English blends I have
to remove that smell/taste before I can enjoy it.

Winslow :sunny:
 
It really depends on the pipe. Some pipes felt great immediately, while others took a couple months. I've got one that a student of mine bought me in Brazil five years ago. I hated it. Put it down for about four years, and just picked it up in January. It's felt fantastic since.

I know what I really like in a pipe, so as long as I follow those parameters, the pipe feels good immediately. If I step outside my parameters, then it takes a while. I think too, at least for me, my expectations change for each pipe, and when and where to smoke the thing. Once that is figured out, then the context is there for the pipe and all is well with the world.

:farao:
 
Pipes are like women and puppies- once you get them cleaned, trained, and behaving properly they then realize they belong to their master.

Ed
 
A pipe isn't mine until I ream it for the first time, have to get to know how a pipe smokes with the tabacs I deem it suitable for smoking, and with my rotation that could be sometime, a case, some years ago, Mike Brissett carved his avatar pipe for me , which I dubbed a Druid's pipe, and having smoked that pipe for some few years now, it is a Heavy Va./Va/Burley/va/per one, which does extremely well with, FVF/ Somerset/ Bosun CP/Dark Fl.and it's companions, it is "my" pipe now! Until I ream the first time they are all on lone, Ken :tongue:
Pacem en Puffing! :tongue:
 
Interesting, varied, and humorous responses – thank you, gents!

Pipes are very interesting as instances of human-object relations. We have quite intimate relationships with them, if I may put it this way, and much more so than with most other objects. Like my pipes, I am quite fond of my chainsaws and telescopes, for example, and these also spend a good deal of time in my hands. Unlike my pipes, however, my chainsaws and telescopes spend very little time in my mouth and I need not worry how they taste! Seriously, though, not quite the same level of intimacy there, I think. Perhaps this contributes to the rather acute passion we can feel toward them compared to other things in the world of artifacts.
 
PegLegEd":y2s5sbdh said:
Pipes are like women and puppies- once you get them cleaned, trained, and behaving properly they then realize they belong to their master.

Ed
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+1 for Ed .......aw hell +1,000,000 :D
 
For the most part I never get overly attached to pipes. Nearly all that I own (that weren't gifts) are available for trade at any given time. I've always thought that pipes were expendable for lack of a better word. I'm far more passionate about my pipe/tobacco advertising items, books and ephemera. So, to answer the question, Never. :lol:
 
Danish_Pipe_Guy":fko5oyp9 said:
For the most part I never get overly attached to pipes. Nearly all that I own (that weren't gifts) are available for trade at any given time. I've always thought that pipes were expendable for lack of a better word. I'm far more passionate about my pipe/tobacco advertising items, books and ephemera. So, to answer the question, Never. :lol:
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Dock, Feel free to unburden yourself. I will make the ultimate sacrifice and I will take those burdensome pipes off your hands. Hell, I won't even charge you for it. :D
 
Yes, you have some beautiful pipes, Dock, (please consider me in line right behind Dover!) and an interesting take on the question. Great attitude and one I share. I have not yet owned any really high end pipes, but I have owned some that I liked very much. I have always been willing to sell or trade them to try others, however. It's all part of the fun.
 
Danish_Pipe_Guy":oik89g6o said:
For the most part I never get overly attached to pipes. Nearly all that I own (that weren't gifts) are available for trade at any given time. I've always thought that pipes were expendable for lack of a better word. I'm far more passionate about my pipe/tobacco advertising items, books and ephemera. So, to answer the question, Never. :lol:
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That is sort of amazing to me in a way, especially considering how special some of the pipes in your collection are.

I am so attached to an ugly little $20 basket pipe that I'm not sure I could bring myself to trade it for anything even remotely in it's value range, just because it was my first pipe. Others, like my Brisset and Rad Davis are like treasures to me...it would take alot to get me to part with them, mostly because I enjoy smoking them so much. Others I am not so attached to, even though I like them, like my boswell.

I have a sub-$20 Ben Wade e-bay estate and a 1920's era BBB that have felt like mine since I first picked them up, even though they were obviously someone else's. Then I have a georgeously grained stanwell shape 30 that I bought new a long time ago, yet still doesn't quite feel right when I smoke it, even though it smokes quite well.

I guess in short, I do not actually have a direct answer to the post topic.
 
I generally become "comfortable" with a new pipe after just a few bowls. But, I don't become well aquainted until I've smoked it for quite some time. After a few months I begin to detect what I call the pipe's personality. When I pack the bowl and light up and then start remembering the times I've spent relaxing and enjoying that particular pipe, then I "know" that it is mine. :scratch:
 
For me I only become one with a pipe after I get over the rim being a little dirty.
 
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