What 'baccy did you start with?

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These stories are great. I started later than many. I inherited a few pipes. A nice Parker and some Grabows. I'm sure I tried some black Cavendish, Lane's best seller, a bulk Virginia and some kind of bulk English mixture. I bought a Peterson straight Bulldog because I was excited about pipes.
. I couldn't get the hang of it and sold the bulldog on eBay. Later I tried some flakes trying to give it another go and it stuck. MacB's navy flake and Mixture flake, plus Peterson's university flake. That was my trinity of flakes for awhile till I got better smoking technique and then really brached out.

Ps. I still think Mixture flake is a good starter flake. While it may be lackluster to many, it's very forgiving.
 
Back in the 70's my family took a vacation to Gatlinburg, and one of the souveniers I ended up with was an Indian peace pipe. Once I got home, I naturally had to find something to smoke in it, and that something ended up being dried pine needles from the woods out behind our house. Somehow, I instinctively knew that I needed the dried brown needles and not the green ones.

That one session with the peacepipe satisfied me for years until one day I was in my local tobacconist smoking a cigar. I decided to take the plunge and buy a briar pipe. I ended up with a ziplock bag of one of the Lane 1Q tongue shredder blends, which wasn't too far from the dried pine needles I enjoyed as a kid. Once I got ahold of a quality Latakia blend, I finally thought I could hang with the hobby long enough to learn how to navigate the obstacles.

 
When I got out of the Army I realized my fellow undergrads were all a lot younger than me and didn't smoke Camel wides. So I wandered over to Leavitt & Peirce and bought a $10 pipe and a few ounces of what I remember was something along the lines of Whiskey Cavendish and their infamous Balkan No. 1. I used it to drive away the smoke of those god damn clove cigarettes. But boy were those special days.
 
G&H Dark Flake in a Chonowitsch straight grain freehand.














Not.

Captain Black in a no-name long-shanked Brandy that a buddy gave to me. I remember he told me to put an apple slice in the tobacco to keep it moist.

So I did. :fpalm:

Last time I ever did that.
 
Believe it or not, it was a weed that grows wild here in the south called "rabbit tobacco". Must have been 12. Had a corn cob pipe, great stuff IMHO.
 
My introduction was a basket bent Dublin and Amphora red back in the mid nineties. With such an intro I switched to cigarettes pretty quickly. Only took up the pipe after I mentioned to the only other pipe smoker I see on a regular basis that I wanted to give up cigs and switch to a pipe but didn't like Amphora (one of the few pipe tobaccos available in Australia). He gave me some Escudo, GLP Abingdon and some Lane aro . I dismissed the aro pretty quickly but fell in love with the Abingdon pretty quickly, the Escudo took me a bit longer but I love it now as well as a good lat bomb here there and everywhere.

Cheers

Tim
 
Bought my first pipe in 1958/59, a small no name, off a card hanging on the wall. Tobacco was Springbok, the tobacco for all farm workers. It was awefully strong, dry as tinder and biting like a bulldog.

Then a mate of mine suggested Grey Hound which was a better choice, dripping wet with perfume, could smell it a mile away.

Then followed Holland House, Amphora and Borkum Riff and a Keyser pipe. Later on bought a Byford and Black & White tobacco. Then Fox, Jock, Boxer, Spies......shyte!!

It's only about 8 years ago that I discovered etailers and started smoking decent stuff like Escudo, Irish Oak, OGS, Escudo, SG Navy Flake, Prairie Wind, Escudo, OJK, Bayou Morning and Escudo.
 
I started with Lane BCA in a Peterson system pipe with a p-lip. I don't remember the shape number as I gave away the pipe to a friend.

I smoked BCA for 7 years. I didn't smoke regularly, but by the time I moved on, BCA didn't smoke wet and didn't bite. The next thing I tried was OGS and the lights went on.
 
MisterE":hdqbcglj said:
I remember he told me to put an apple slice in the tobacco to keep it moist.

So I did. :fpalm:

Last time I ever did that.
Click to expand...
I was told that as well.

I also only did that once!
 
Peter Stokkebye Golden Dansk after being gifted my father in law's pipe after he passed away.  The pipe was a no name drugstore pipe, but it smokes good.  I had stopped by the tobacco shop I frequented for cigars and got a pipe lesson and tobacco.  I figured it would be cheaper than cigars.  It would be if i would stop buying pipes.  Yeah right.  I also got some coffee flavored something that day that is still sitting at the house at the bottom of my repurposed humidor.

I didn't have ny AHA moment with a pipe until I bought my 3rd pipe a Radice estate straight billiard and smoked Black Shag in it. I had been struggling for about a year at that point.
 
DrT999":hbrm88o9 said:
MisterE":hbrm88o9 said:
I remember he told me to put an apple slice in the tobacco to keep it moist.

So I did. :fpalm:

Last time I ever did that.
Click to expand...
I was told that as well.

I also only did that once!
Click to expand...
Add me to the "only did that once" list. :p Awful, awful advice :evil: FTRPLT
 
I see people giving that same advice about the apple slice on snuff forums. I never thought it sounded like a good idea. Must be some kind of newbie initiation.
 
DrT999":22g5zqsv said:
MisterE":22g5zqsv said:
I remember he told me to put an apple slice in the tobacco to keep it moist.

So I did. :fpalm:

Last time I ever did that.
Click to expand...
I was told that as well.

I also only did that once!
Click to expand...
That's part of the true pipe smokers initiation into this sport !! :twisted: :cheers:
 
monbla256":3kr23lcy said:
Thought it might be interesting to see what tobacco blend everyone started their pipe smoking journey with and when. For me it started full time in 'nam back in '68/'69 with a big blue tin of Granger I picked up at the PX in Siagon on the recomendation of my CO. Stayed with it for about the first year and a half then began to try some others like Bond Street that my father had smoked. after that I was introduced to English/Balkans and moved on. Sadly my TV didn't pick up the web and I had to go to a real STORE to buy my 'baccy  :twisted: :twisted:



Click to expand...
About your TV...Back before home computers were big, my dad bought a Web-TV. It was soemthing that let you browse the web on your TV, just like it sounds. It was really slow to do anything, though, since there wasn't a keyboard.

I was given a corn cob in college and then bought my first pipe on eBay: an estate Kaywoodie 13b. I smoked whatever bulk aromatic was sitting around that my friends had (I didn't smoke that much, so I wasn't a huge mooch). After graduation I got on the internet and heard about Burley and English and Virginnia, so I went to a shop and asked for some bulks. I got Burley blend (probably Lane or Altadis) as well as Altadis' African Queen and Heavy English. I disliked them at first, but something about them lured me back. It was almost like I craved them even though I disliked them (I had the same experience with hoppy beers). Well, I started to like them, and finally got some proper natural blends, my favorite of which was GLP Westminster. Funny thing is that when I get together with my college friends now, I'm the one who brings all the tobacco and spare cobs so that everyone has something to smoke!
 
I started smoking a pipe in '72. I still have my first pipe a Grabow Starfire that surprisingly enough is a really great smoker. My first tobacco was a Paladin's cherry blend, black cherry maybe, anyway it about killed me so I tossed and waited for my tongue to heal up, which was fine as I was still in high school and needed time to save up a few coins to try something else.

Next try was Rum and Maple, pretty much the same result though not as bad. I guess I had this thing about sweet smelling tongue roasting tobaccos. It wasn't until an older gent (probably younger than I am now at the time) at the factory I took a job at, after hs graduation, took me aside and taught me a few things about pipe smoking, which of course made all the difference.

He got me off the aros first thing, heck I didn't know what that was until he explained tobacco basics to me, and gave me a pouch of SWR Special Mixture to try. I smoked that for the longest time in the early to mid '70s before I started to branch out and try non-drugstore brands and pretty much never looked back.
 
Carter Hall was my first pipe tobacco when I was 16 years old. I found a prince shape pipe and a pouch lying under a tree on a small hilltop. Took it home cleaned it up with some alcohol and went at it. I'm 63 now and Carter Hall is still good.
 
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I was quite a fool and started with Three Nuns. I liked the tin and read some great stuff about it online. However i wasn't used to nicotine back then and got quite the shock, to this date i still cant bear to smoke Three Nuns, sadly.
And its the only pipe tobacco that's readily available in my local store, along with yellow Capstan Flake. (incidentally i love Capstan)
 
A friend of mine in middle school gave me one of his fathers cobs, a MM Washington I think. The thing had electrical tape around the bowl to fix a crack in it. And a bag of what I'm fairly sure was 1Q. Not the best experience to be honest. I got more from the old guy who ran the local pipe shop, although it had a different name as a house blend. Didn't do so well until my great uncle showed me a few tricks. Changed the whole game for me. All he smoked was half and half though. So I smoked that for some years.
 
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