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Krusty

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Greetings one and all.

Glanced around a little and thought your community might be accepting of a smoker some may consider to be a little on the "krusty" side of the briar.

P'raps makes for a bit lengthy of an introduction but the following excerpt from A.A. Milnes "Not That It Matters" says a lot towards my own views on matters briar.


Smoking is a Fine Art (Excerpts), by A. A. Milne

...There has grown up a new school of pipe smokers...its pupils would no longer think of smoking a pipe without the white spot as of smoking brown paper. So far are they from smoking brown paper that each one of them has his tobacco specially blended.
...However, it is the pipe rather than the tobacco which marks him as belonging to this particular school. He pins his faith, not so much to its labor saving devices as to the white spot outside, the white spot of an otherwise aimless life. This tells the world that it is one of the pipes. Never was an announcement more superfluous.
...Whereas men of an older school, like myself, smoke for the pleasure of smoking, men of this school smoke for the pleasure of pipe-owning--of selecting which of their many white-spotted pipes they will fill with their specially blended tobacco, of filling the one so chosen, of lighting it, of taking it from the mouth to gaze lovingly at the white spot and thus letting it go out, of lighting it again and letting it go out again, of polishing it up with their own special polisher and putting it to bed, and then the pleasure of beginning all over again with another white-spotted one. They are not so much pipe smokers as pipe keepers; and to have spoken as I did just now of their owning pipes was wrong, for it is they who are in bondage to the white spot.
...You may be excused for feeling after the first pipe that the joys of smoking have been rated too high, and for trying to extract your pleasure from the polish on the pipe's surface, the pride of possessing a special mixture of your own, and such-like matters, rather than from the actual inspiration and expiration of smoke. In the same way a man not fond of reading may find delight in a library of well-bound books. They are pleasant to handle, pleasant to talk about, pleasant to show to friends.But it is the man without the library of well-bound books who generally does most of the reading.
So I feel that it is we of the older school that do most of the smoking. We smoke unconsciously while we are doing other things; they try, but not very successfully, to do other things while they are consciously smoking. No doubt they despise us, and tell themselves that we are not real smokers, but I fancy they feel a little uneasy sometimes. For my young friends are always trying to persuade me to join their school, to become one of the white-spotted ones.

-from Not That It Matters, 1920


Well I'm not all that old, nor have I decades of pipe smoking under my belt.
Just enjoy tobacco.

Most of my pipes are refurbished estates.
I like to keep them clean and polished more so that they will taste good and will last rather than as an exercise in vanity.

I do appreciate the beauty and craft in many of the one-off artisan pipes.
Ah me though, champagne tastes on a beer budget you know.

Artisan tobaccos.
Again, the craft involved is appreciated but I find that I can be dollar conscious and still have a good, really good, bowl with out breaking the bank.

Peter Stokkebye, Charles Fairmorn, Samuel Gawith when available, serve well in that respect.
Gawith Hoggarth, for not much more than the Stokkebyes but a hella lot less then those artisan blends, takes care of my more "discerning" moments.

That's the short of it then. Hope to share more, learn more, later on.

Hello and well met all.

 
Welcome. It's nice to see a man after my own heart.

Great excerpt. "Smoke for the pleasure of smoking" and "We smoke unconsciously while we are doing other things" sums it all up.

It doesn't have to be complicated.
 
Thanks sor the lengthy introduction...now we just need some pics.
 
Good Morning and thanks for the welcome folks.

Looking over my post I feel I need to add; while I personally am a smoker much more so than a hobbyist, I do hope you all understand I also hold nothing in any way, shape or form related to disdain of the collectors and blend "gourmands" amongst this community.

Those are the folks I learn so much from!
When faced with decisions and choices, the briar aficionados are the invaluable resource.


hobie1dog":p1tc5rf3 said:
Thanks sor the lengthy introduction...now we just need some pics.
What kind of pics ya lookin' for Hobie?
 
"Here we go round the mulberry bush."
"Oh!" said Pooh. He thought for a long time
(Chapter 6)

Quoting Rusty from http://christianpipesmokers.net/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=460884 (this info is too good not to be reposted here)

"You folks are judging a different time in history according to our current standards. There was a much sharper divide between classes when Milne wrote that essay. Dunhill was THE luxury brand in pipes at the time. And they were priced beyond what Milne could afford. So the young dandy's were an object of scorn. He is taking a poke at the rich class & that itself is a symptom of change in those times. England was emerging from a very rigid Edwardian class society. Appreciate it for what it is rather than dragging it into our times. Dunhill is still a luxury brand but they are available to almost anybody. After all we have a number of avenues including estate pipes which wasn't even a consideration back then."

....

It's quite interesting to note the dates of events in his essay.
He was born in 1882 and his father ran a public school. So he was not upper class at all. He wasn't even from a well-to-do mercantile family (as Dunhill was to become).

"My first introduction to Lady Nicotine was at the innocent age of eight" - 1890
There is no Dunhill in 1890 and these years are the sunset of the Victorian British Empire.

"At eighteen I went to Cambridge, and bought two pipes in a case." - 1900.
Last year of Victoria. Still no Dunhill. Alfred was off playing with car accessories in his father's biz and there would be at least three more businesses before the tobacco biz.

He doesn't mention anything ten years later at 28 in 1910 which is when Dunhill started offering Dunhill briars. Dunhill's biz was three years old in 1910 and the biz is in dire condition with their rich customers who aren't paying the balance on their accounts.

But ten years more in 1920 is when the essay was written and he is 38.

The war has finished and Dunhill was quite successful in their marketing campaign by sending officers (not NCO or enlisted ranks) pipes and tobacco. Who were the officers? The upper class and those with a University education, the latter class included Milne. Whether Milne got a Dunhill pipe isn't revealed. But as a result of this promotion there were many now coming to Dunhill's shop and he also has a lively mail-order biz too. This is how the American officers discovered Dunhill pipes too. The Brits would have passed along the info. But no enlisted ranks got Dunhill pipes. In any case this is the beginning of the growth years for Dunhill.

"In the last four years there has grown up a new school of pipe- smokers, by which (I suspect) I am hardly regarded as a pipe- smoker at all."

That's 1916-1920. Middle of the war years until 2 years after.

He's poking fun at the rich who can afford many Dunhill's. Against his 'shilling briar's'. But he isn't actually criticizing Dunhill pipes themselves.
 
Funny: Dunhills in good condition can now be bought all day long on Ebay for $150. :lol: Their former mystique---which dates back to well before WWII---was so strong, though, that people still point to them as "snob" pipes.

There are Net forums that are so fed up with the recurring anti-Dunhill acrimony that they lock many threads before the crap even starts.

Alfred did one hell of a job of marketing, eh? :lol:

What I find doubly ironic is how today's artisan carvers who sell pipes costing well into the thousands---and the smokers who collect them---are celebrated as the "saviors" of the hobby and not considered snobs at all.
 
That's the kind of stuff I find fascinating ShellBriar! Thanks for getting that out there!!

Bear in mind, my use of that excerpt was simply to distinguish myself as utilitarian smoker rather than a hobbyist.

Not a thing wrong with Dunhills or hobbyists to be sure!

Learning the history behind the weed I so enjoy and the tools of it's consumption is great fun, thanks again.
 
Good stuff guys! Thanks for the posts LL, ShellBriar, and Krusty. I'm a Dunhill fan, not a devotee, but I love a good discussion!
 
Welcome, Krusty, and thanks for the education on Milne. I only associated him with his other "famous" character (which, I understand, was his retarded brother?) and his supposedly nervous, self conscious self character of Piglet.

Natch
 
Hello back at ya folks.

While I have always been an admirer (wish I could find MY way there) of the Hundred Acre Wood, I really know little of Milne. The back story provided by ShellBriar has been more instructive regarding Milne then anything else I've come across in some time.

@Natch
I see you like the Lakeland flake.
G&H products have really taken a hold of my preferences, and credit card, of late.
Bright CR and Best Brown #2 leading the way!
 
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