Pipes I want but don't want to pay for...... I guess that's going to be a really small list. I have accepted a couple of facts, first that I can't afford the really expensive or even moderately expensive stuff. I'm OK with that, it was a choice. A few years ago my wife and I decided to take in our two granddaughters and become their guardians. We've had them five years come May, and it's a choice I'll never regret. We are both almost 50 now, and had already raised our own children and were finally overcoming the poverty that goes along with that :lol: The wife quit work to stay home and raise the girls, so basically we went back to being broke parents again, which is fine. They are a blessing and Gods gifts are greater than any trinkets of this earth. And like I said, it was a choice we gladly made so I don't really care much about the pipes I can't buy.
Second thing, I have owned some of those high dollar pipes in the past. But, like the other expensive little baubles I'd accumulated once I'd had some money, the pipes and flyrods and little English reels represented a few thousand dollars that could be better spent, so they were sold. It's funny about fine things, you learn about them and lust after them, but once you attain them you realize that, though they are little artistic expressions and quite beautiful, they are really just extras in life that don't matter much in the greater scheme of things. I can honestly say that my pipe smoking enhances my enjoyment of life, but with only a few exceptions, I can't say that those expensive pipes brought me any more pleasure than the more pedestrian ones. Now I'm not at all knocking the guy who can afford to buy them and who loves to smoke them, more power to ya. I'm just talking about myself and my own journey here.
Of all the pipes I'd sold the one I wished I could have kept was the Bang. It was just exceptional. It was without peer. If I had the financial means I'd have collected as many of them as I could have and smoked them all blissfully. But, it's just too much money, and in the end I couldn't justify keeping even one pipe that was worth a thousand dollars, it just wasn't right. So I guess that's the one pipe that fits the question of the original post, wish I could, but can't.
I did keep a few Castellos and a a little GRC that, collectively, are worth a bit more than that Bang, but we're talking 7 pipes versus 1. If you can find what your $$ threshold is for a collection then buy the most pleasing pipes within that threshold and be happy with that. I still like to look at the high dollar stuff because I can appreciate it, but for me I just can't consider it, realistically.
A last little bit. Did the Chonowitsch or Hedegaard smoke better than the Stanwells? Truth is no, they did not. Did the Dunhill or the Charatan or the Barling smoke better than the $80 Peterson? Nope, not at all. The Bang was amazing, the Castellos superior, but beyond that, the rest were only art.
