Straighrgrains Ain't What They Used To Be!

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Dock

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In preperation for NY in a couple of weeks I spent tonight looking at several hundred pipes on sites from e-bay to smokingpipes.com, to Iwan Ries, to Pulvers Briar and about a thousand others in between. The one thing that I came away with was that lack luster grained smooths are selling for an uncomfortable amount of money. Even some pipes in the $700.00+ range had signifigant washout around their bowls.

I truly think that there may be a REAL lack of great wood in the world and carvers are simply doing the best they can with the fair to good wood that they can obtain. The exception here is Austrian Peter Matzhold. For whatever reason he seems to turn out an amzing amount of killer smooths per year and most are reasonably affordable. I also suspect that the briar mills are taking VERY good care of some high paying European carvers and most all of the small supply of truly great wood is routed their way.

I've made the decision to no longer persue straightgrains. It's just too hard to justify the cost for what you get for your hard earned cash. I will instead spend my pipe money on sandblasts and select rusticated briars.

I wonder if others share my sentiments here?...
 
Briar around the Med is as common as sagebrush in the American Southwest. Many thousands of square miles of the stuff. It will never run out. Especially since the demand has dropped 95%+ in the last 30-40 years.

It is harder to find workers to harvest it, though, but that would just make it more expensive, not inferior in quality.

If there is less premium wood making it into the hands of certain carvers (I have no idea), the only logical answer would seem to be how it is allocated by the mills.
 
Agree!!! I peruse the same sites (you know, the usual suspects!!). I've been put off several times by a so-called SG which is really a nice flame grain. I'm not doing much, if any, pipe buying now anyway!!! And I'm sure not wasting my $$$$ on over-graded briar. I own three "no-name" SG's that only say "straight grain" on the shank. One does have four very small fills. All three are wonderful smokers and among my "circle of favs!!" FTRPLT
 
I concur about modern straight-grains not being high quality. I have only been smoking a pipe for a year now, but have already decided to collect only sandblasted and/or rusticated pipes. One pipe-maker though whose straight-grains I respect highly would be Philip Trypis, who inherited a bunch of 200 year old Algerian Briar from his grandfather. Though Trypis is not very active these days, some of the stuff that he has put out over the past 30-40 years has been phenomenal. I have only one of his pipes, but it is a giant bent straight-grain and not only smokes like a champ, but the briar is very high quality and the grain is absolutely gorgeous!
 
Noticed the same & when I do find a nice Danish straight grain they are in the 1K plus price range.

Guess I'll stay with my two Tao straight grains & TRP morta.

Danish Pipe Guy amazing collection & nice pair of Tao's
 
Danish_Pipe_Guy":0pjmh2gm said:
"I also suspect that the briar mills are taking VERY good care of some high paying European carvers and most all of the small supply of truly great wood is routed their way"
I've talked to a few US carvers and they've echoed the same sentiment about the supply of "special briar". They may be able to obtain several outstanding blocks but nothing they can count on in each shipment. Then there are those US carvers that travel to Italy each year to hand pick their briar to insure the best blocks possible, but I would think that the expense and time of this endeavor is added to the price of each pipe.

I believe that there are some carvers out there that continually produce wonderful straight grained pipes, at very reasonable prices, one name that comes to mind is Claudio Cavicchi. He has the advantage of actually being from Italy.

I think that a straight grained pipe might be the exception and when a carver finds the right block we are all blessed, but these pipes are far and few between.
 
For new wood, I agree the really tight stuff is rarer than it used to be. In estates I think there are some decent buys out there in really tight, straight grain smooths - the AAA old Willmers and Upshall B smooths, for for example.

Steve
 
I'm guessing there are a lot of factors that play into why getting a high-quality straightgrain is so difficult, but personally I don't really find straightgrains as attractive as a lot of people do... or, perhaps a better way of saying that is, I just don't think that a pipe has to be a straightgrain to be an aesthetically pleasing pipe, and certainly not to be an amazing smoker. While I do find myself looking at straightgrains, I often find that I prefer the look of nice sandblasts, rusticated pipes, etc.

Just my 2 cents! :tongue:
 
Dealing with the Eurocentric briar business was one of the reasons Mike Butera stopped carving. When it got so traveling to Italy and spending three days signing every block of a shipment to assure what was delivered was the same batch he'd paid for still didn't work, he started taking a stronger interest in cigars. Can't blame him. The cigar companies are welcoming and much easier to work with. Must be a Latin hospitality + emerging vs. Old World economy thing.
 
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