Isagar
Well-known member
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2013
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So first, a little back story:
As some of you may or may not know from my profile, I have a particular fond for Mr. Vladamir Grechukhin's pipes starting since 2011 when I purchased a pipe of his when smokingpipes.com became a dealer. Since then, I have collected so far 6 pipes from the man himself.
So 2 weeks ago, while doing my usual browsing on ebay, I came across an estate Grechukhin sandblast auction with no reserve starting at .99 cents. Seeing the stamping on it, I knew instantly it was a pre-2012 pipe and was a very rare shape from the old master. Well, on the last day of the auction, the price was at $150 dollars and I've yet to bid. In my mind I thought it was going to end around $400 ish and with few hours left and bed time was calling, I made the decision to put down a max bid of $500 dollars to secure it. But truth it, I wasn't too happy with myself to spend that much on an estate pipe as I know the condition could be completely different from the photos.
Anyway waking up the next morning, I found out I won it for just $200 dollars! I was shocked and ecstatic! But I quickly grounded myself knowing that the worst has yet to come and expectation usually only leads to disappointment. Some of you may recall a week ago I was asking for a good pipe refurbisher (for this reason).
Fast forward two weeks to now, got up today and looked out my window and saw a small package next to the front gate. At first I thought it was the TAD from 4noggins but after getting closer I realized the package was too small to be that. It had to be the Grechukhin pipe!
I took the package and rush back inside to open it and viola! It was the most perfect estate pipe I could ever imagined. Bowl was clean and reamed, airway smelling fresh and steam was polished with no tooth mark or oxidation. I still ran pipe cleaners with some alcohol to make sure it was clean inside and it was indeed. The only downside, if any, is some minor rim darkening but that's to be expected with like all estate pipes. For $200 dollars this is way more than I bargained for!
This is quite frankly, the best morning for me in terms of anything to do with pipes! I am so happy that I just had to share this with someone, and who else could understand this feeling more than my fellow brothers...
As some of you may or may not know from my profile, I have a particular fond for Mr. Vladamir Grechukhin's pipes starting since 2011 when I purchased a pipe of his when smokingpipes.com became a dealer. Since then, I have collected so far 6 pipes from the man himself.
So 2 weeks ago, while doing my usual browsing on ebay, I came across an estate Grechukhin sandblast auction with no reserve starting at .99 cents. Seeing the stamping on it, I knew instantly it was a pre-2012 pipe and was a very rare shape from the old master. Well, on the last day of the auction, the price was at $150 dollars and I've yet to bid. In my mind I thought it was going to end around $400 ish and with few hours left and bed time was calling, I made the decision to put down a max bid of $500 dollars to secure it. But truth it, I wasn't too happy with myself to spend that much on an estate pipe as I know the condition could be completely different from the photos.
Anyway waking up the next morning, I found out I won it for just $200 dollars! I was shocked and ecstatic! But I quickly grounded myself knowing that the worst has yet to come and expectation usually only leads to disappointment. Some of you may recall a week ago I was asking for a good pipe refurbisher (for this reason).
Fast forward two weeks to now, got up today and looked out my window and saw a small package next to the front gate. At first I thought it was the TAD from 4noggins but after getting closer I realized the package was too small to be that. It had to be the Grechukhin pipe!
I took the package and rush back inside to open it and viola! It was the most perfect estate pipe I could ever imagined. Bowl was clean and reamed, airway smelling fresh and steam was polished with no tooth mark or oxidation. I still ran pipe cleaners with some alcohol to make sure it was clean inside and it was indeed. The only downside, if any, is some minor rim darkening but that's to be expected with like all estate pipes. For $200 dollars this is way more than I bargained for!
This is quite frankly, the best morning for me in terms of anything to do with pipes! I am so happy that I just had to share this with someone, and who else could understand this feeling more than my fellow brothers...
