A
Anonymous
Guest
Full Disclosure : Being old & somewhat experienced is no guarantee you're not an old & experienced fool. The only advantage that time & pipe miles in your logbook give you is a better shot at sorting out the variables involved. With that in mind, FWIW :
1) Bigger is not better.
I am reminded of this every time I peruse the offerings on estate pipe sites and reflect that the pipes I'm looking at are the ones people are trying to sell because they thought they would like them, but they don't. Most of the time the briar is pretty, but their bowls are too big and the chambers are too wide & deep, holding far more tobacco than people (after the novelty wears off) come to realise they usually want to smoke. In other words, the kind of pipes that people enjoy looking at more than they do actually smoking them.
These are augmented by the new ones the site owners (who have been in the game for a long time and know what sells) pick up/import & sell. Which not infrequently fit the same general description. Like any other fashion, it sells because it sells because it sells.
I suspect that people are so used to seeing the McMansions that were going up everywhere for a while and the girl at the fast food counter saying, "Supersize it ?" that the habit's carried over into pipes.
It's crazy. 50 years ago, when Europe was making Mercedes & BMW passenger cars that were the world standard of excellence, the USA was cranking out Cadilacs, Lincolns & Imperials. Once they saw the way Caminettos took off here, Italian makers became firmly convinced that a pipe could not be too big or ungainly-looking for the US market. From that day 'til now, with some exceptions, they've made ill-proportioned, oversized pipes for sale here and reasonably-sized, conservatively shaped pipes that their countrymen buy and smoke.
The briar cutters make out because they can sell bigger blocks for more. And the pipemakers make out because they can charge way more, proportionately, for a big pipe than a small one. (In fairness, the odds of a flaw showing up does increase with size. But not by so much as the size/price ratio seems to entail). Everybody's happy but the guy who's hoping Mike or Marty can move the Buick he bought so he can afford a Honda to drive.
What the burn time of English mixtures is somebody else can say. I'm a flake guy. Smoking flakes (broken or not) as flakes, even a smallish apple / bent bulldog / prince is a one-hour smoke, and a billiard even longer. How much more do you really want out of one pipe at one sitting ?
Multiply that by the speed with which the "Vitamin N" content of the heavy Lakeland ropes &c. some people like (even, to some people, Virginias/VaPers) creeps up on their tolerence levels. It's no accident that guys who like these (PeeDee comes to mind) are always keeping half an eye out for nice group 2-3 size pipes to smoke ropes in. Especially if these have
2) Acryllic stems.
You might be resigned to the necessity of smoking the cheapest tobacco you can find that you halfway like, saving "the good stuff" for special treats. Or maybe you're just OK with smoking bulk commodity tobacco. But you still want to enjoy the taste of it. No ?
For that, you want an acrylic stem.
Period.
Because it won't taste like stem. No matter how well you keep up with the deterioration vulcanite's subject to, after a while, sulfur-treated rubber tastes like sulfur-treated rubber. Don't believe me ? Get a pipe with an acrylic stem, smoke something you like in it enough to marry them, and notice the difference in how clean and pure your tobacco tastes in the acrylic-stemmed alternative.
And it will never deteriorate. No matter how many years you smoke it.
"Maybe so, but I like to clench my pipes . . ."
All . . . righty . . . then.
3) Tobacco.
People seem to typically start out smoking bubble gum. (This is not all necessarily sickly sweet. They make adult bubble gum flavored tobaccos for adults). Experimenting around, they discover that some of what's out there actually tastes like tobacco. And smells like it too !
At that point, the race is on, driven by the seeming compulsion to smoke one tin of every tobacco ever made. (If today is Tuesday, this must be Luxury Navy Flake). This goes on, sometimes, for years. It's like they're afraid they're going to miss something.
Again, there's a general pattern. At first, the more intense flavours & aromas are often more appealing. But as the years and miles roll on, Virginias and/or Burlies typically come to be preferred. Compared to the vivid mixtures of youth, they're not unlike the older guys whose older dogs are curled up beside them in front of the fireplace -- marked by contentment, comfort, and disinclination to get up and go chase something.
By this point, for those who've reached it, the advantage of what's called "dedicating" specific pipes to specific tobaccos they play well with is a no-brainer proposition. It's too obvious. Like when there's an organ playing in church and its accoustics creates a standing wave that reinforces a pedal point. Those pipes go to eleven !!!
To be continued if not howled down by the outraged.
:face:
1) Bigger is not better.
I am reminded of this every time I peruse the offerings on estate pipe sites and reflect that the pipes I'm looking at are the ones people are trying to sell because they thought they would like them, but they don't. Most of the time the briar is pretty, but their bowls are too big and the chambers are too wide & deep, holding far more tobacco than people (after the novelty wears off) come to realise they usually want to smoke. In other words, the kind of pipes that people enjoy looking at more than they do actually smoking them.
These are augmented by the new ones the site owners (who have been in the game for a long time and know what sells) pick up/import & sell. Which not infrequently fit the same general description. Like any other fashion, it sells because it sells because it sells.
I suspect that people are so used to seeing the McMansions that were going up everywhere for a while and the girl at the fast food counter saying, "Supersize it ?" that the habit's carried over into pipes.
It's crazy. 50 years ago, when Europe was making Mercedes & BMW passenger cars that were the world standard of excellence, the USA was cranking out Cadilacs, Lincolns & Imperials. Once they saw the way Caminettos took off here, Italian makers became firmly convinced that a pipe could not be too big or ungainly-looking for the US market. From that day 'til now, with some exceptions, they've made ill-proportioned, oversized pipes for sale here and reasonably-sized, conservatively shaped pipes that their countrymen buy and smoke.
The briar cutters make out because they can sell bigger blocks for more. And the pipemakers make out because they can charge way more, proportionately, for a big pipe than a small one. (In fairness, the odds of a flaw showing up does increase with size. But not by so much as the size/price ratio seems to entail). Everybody's happy but the guy who's hoping Mike or Marty can move the Buick he bought so he can afford a Honda to drive.
What the burn time of English mixtures is somebody else can say. I'm a flake guy. Smoking flakes (broken or not) as flakes, even a smallish apple / bent bulldog / prince is a one-hour smoke, and a billiard even longer. How much more do you really want out of one pipe at one sitting ?
Multiply that by the speed with which the "Vitamin N" content of the heavy Lakeland ropes &c. some people like (even, to some people, Virginias/VaPers) creeps up on their tolerence levels. It's no accident that guys who like these (PeeDee comes to mind) are always keeping half an eye out for nice group 2-3 size pipes to smoke ropes in. Especially if these have
2) Acryllic stems.
You might be resigned to the necessity of smoking the cheapest tobacco you can find that you halfway like, saving "the good stuff" for special treats. Or maybe you're just OK with smoking bulk commodity tobacco. But you still want to enjoy the taste of it. No ?
For that, you want an acrylic stem.
Period.
Because it won't taste like stem. No matter how well you keep up with the deterioration vulcanite's subject to, after a while, sulfur-treated rubber tastes like sulfur-treated rubber. Don't believe me ? Get a pipe with an acrylic stem, smoke something you like in it enough to marry them, and notice the difference in how clean and pure your tobacco tastes in the acrylic-stemmed alternative.
And it will never deteriorate. No matter how many years you smoke it.
"Maybe so, but I like to clench my pipes . . ."
All . . . righty . . . then.
3) Tobacco.
People seem to typically start out smoking bubble gum. (This is not all necessarily sickly sweet. They make adult bubble gum flavored tobaccos for adults). Experimenting around, they discover that some of what's out there actually tastes like tobacco. And smells like it too !
At that point, the race is on, driven by the seeming compulsion to smoke one tin of every tobacco ever made. (If today is Tuesday, this must be Luxury Navy Flake). This goes on, sometimes, for years. It's like they're afraid they're going to miss something.
Again, there's a general pattern. At first, the more intense flavours & aromas are often more appealing. But as the years and miles roll on, Virginias and/or Burlies typically come to be preferred. Compared to the vivid mixtures of youth, they're not unlike the older guys whose older dogs are curled up beside them in front of the fireplace -- marked by contentment, comfort, and disinclination to get up and go chase something.
By this point, for those who've reached it, the advantage of what's called "dedicating" specific pipes to specific tobaccos they play well with is a no-brainer proposition. It's too obvious. Like when there's an organ playing in church and its accoustics creates a standing wave that reinforces a pedal point. Those pipes go to eleven !!!
To be continued if not howled down by the outraged.
:face:
