Your first pipe: what, when and where?

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I got my first pipe in 1966, too. I was 14. My father had caught me smoking cigarettes a month or so before and had given me a good hiding. But, when I unwrapped one of my gifts at Christmas that year, there in a box was a bent Dr Grabow Duke and a flip-top can of Sir Walter Raleigh tobacco. Dad told me if I was going to smoke (and he knew I'd keep it up), then I should smoke a pipe. In retrospect, that was pretty wise of him, and he'd stopped smoking anything years ago. I knew nothing about pipes, so the first few years were a steep learning curve for me. I knew a few old men who smoked pipes, but they also smoked RYO cigarettes made with the same tobacco the put in their pipes. They really didn't know any more than I.

But, little by little, I learned and almost 45 years later, I'm still 'carrying that hod.'
 
Last November. Have been smoking cigars for years but shelling out 125 bucks for a box of 20 starting getting a little old so as a matter of economics I figured I'd try pipes. Besides pipes themselves, which i think my 5 regulars come to about 270 or so total, tobacco is WAY cheaper. Even the higher tinned tobacco is still around 90 bucks a pound, 16oz a pound, minimum 8 bowls (big ones) an ounce, that's 128 smokes per pound, so 70 cents a smoke compared to the 6 bucks a smoke. Or you can get decent bulks at 30 bucks a pound so now you're down to 25 cents a bowl even if you're smoking 8 bowls per ounce. Anywhoo, went to local Tinderbox and got a Brebbia 1960 Full Bent and the rest is history. Though I still have my cigar stash aging in undisturbed comfort of my humidor. 20 years from now I'll have lots of awesome cigars.
 
My dad bought me a white Kaywoodie in my 18th birthday. I still have it some 300+ pipes later.
 
On June 1, 1959, when I was 12 1/2. my dad brought me home a bent corncob and a canister of Carter Hall, which is what he smoked. That evening him and several of his pipe smoking friends started showing me the right way to smoke a pipe. I had that first cob, and still smoked it now and again, until a fire in the summer of 1995 wiped out my collection and my cellar.
 
My first pipe was a figural meer, purchased from Disney World's tobacconist. Not the first pipe I smoked (that was a cob with CWB) but still, my entry into the pipe world.

That shop is gone but I still have the pipe.
 
When I was 18 or 19 (1986 or '87), I bought a straight Dr Grabow from Walgreens....but didn't smoke it nor even buy any tobacco. I liked the smell of a pipe and all but was reluctant to cross the line into being a 'smoker' since I had stayed clear of cigarettes...of any variety. I bought a second pipe, a Grabow bent, and even would put them in my mouth while talking or driving. People probably thought it was an image thing and it's hard to argue otherwise, especially given how young I was, but looking back I think I just acculturating myself to the world of the pipe.

After what was probably a couple months, I finally bought some Amphora, also from Walgreens, but after only a couple days I discovered Tinder Box and discovered a whole world of choices.

Strangely, though, I don't remember where that first smoke was. My room? My car? at work? I don't even remember how I liked it, though obviously I continued with it.

 
May 1973....Tulsa, Oklahoma......Ted's Pipe Shop........House pipe.....Smooth Pot shape.......Still have the pipe; on it's 3rd bit.......$ 17....No fills !!!!
 
i was 19, so that would be 2002, and i finally found a pipe that was simple enough and cost-effective that if i didn't like it i could toss it away. I found a little chacom "le flamme" for 17 bucks and i still have it today. first smoke in it was amphora aromatic.
 
2003 @ 16years of age. Grandfathers full bent Grabow, Woods behind their house, My grandfathers blend of 3/4 Carter Hall and 1/4 cheap drugstore vanilla. Im not an aromatic smoker at all but I do keep a pound or so of this mixed up around my stash just for rememberance purposes. Also this is the only one the wife can stand the smell of as I smoke mostly VAPER blends.
 
My first was a Grabow bought as an estate at a local flea market when I was 18 years old. It was a Silver Duke model bent with a p-lip stem that had been smoked a few times at best. I paid the princely sum of five dollars and felt that I had got one helluva great bargin. I still have it today and in spite of it's best efforts to keep me from ever smoking again, I perceivered and soon after bought a Stanwell. I have to say that nothing smoked quite as bad as that Grabow. :lol: It sits in a place of honor on my mantle at home now...
 
my first was borkum ruff wiskey in a mm $3 corncob at 19, just to try while me and my younger brother were fishing one day. Went through about five of them (breaking, melting the stem from smoking too hot, losing it, ect.....) my first real step into pipe smoking was a 1/2 bent billiard SMS meerschaum and some custom blend from a local tobacco store called the epitome. Still use regularly , it is darker than some of my briars now .
 
In 1968 I bought a Dr Grabow bent apple from a local drugstore and some Borkum Riff Whiskey. Somehow I managed to keep with it until I discovered a Smoker's Haven catalog and GBD pipes. From then on I almost always had a pipe in my mouth. Now, forty-three years later I still almost always have a pipe in my mouth!
 
Two months ago one of my high school friends came up foar a visit. He told me that he had gotten into pipe smoking and was realling enjoying it. We were in downtown St. Charles and our wives were checking out all of the little shops and such when he and I stumbled across a local tobacconist shop, John Dengler Tobacconist by the way. We went in and he bought me a bent MM Diplomat and a straight for himself. He bought a couple of oz of the shops custom blends and that evening we sat out back and smoked a couple of bowls together with some good conversation. I was hooked and have been trying to learn as much about pipes as I can. In fact I've got a Ben Wade bulldog waiting for me in the mailbox when I get home! :D
 
My late Pap smoked a pipe as long as I can remember. He was a one brand man - Uhles #255. Never any other. I remember this since as a kid I used to be able to buy it for him for Christmas at the local drug store. Yes they sold this to me and it was back in the mid 60's or so.

I tried the pipe occasionally in the late 60s using his pipes (he had inexpensive pipes such as Kaywoodies and the like) but it didn't catch.

Fast forward to the mid 90s. I found myself in the Davidoff store in London since I was now interested in cigars, and determined I'd pick up an inexpensive pipe. Decided on a cheap Chacoom and tamper but didn't buy any pipe 'baccy.

Returned home and got in some Uhles #255, since I figured if it was good enough for my Pap it was good enough for me. Didn't know jack squat about aromatics, or anything else for that matter.

Smoked #255 for a while and also got in some other Uhles blends. Bishops Move was one of them, and developed a taste for Latakia although I didn't know what it was at the time. Just that I enjoyed it.

Years later a local TB opened up and offered samples of virtually all of their blends. Got to sample a wide variety and learned a bunch. I became a regular there, and they had a way great smoking lounge as well. Bought several pipes from them.

For some reason I laid off pipes for about 10 years since cigars took center stage, but have returned to pipes about 2 years ago. Lots to catch up on and I'm still learning.

Today, I'm more of a VaPer kind of guy but still keep some #255 around to help me celebrate my Pap and his love of pipes.

And this site has been a way great oasis full of helpful info. Glad to be here.

So there ya go!

:cheers:


Cheers,

RR
 
First pipe was a Pocket Pal and a pouch of Bull Durham I purchased in May of 1959 when I gassed up the tractor at a nearby country store before cutting hay at my aunt's farm. Been smoking a pipe off and on since then but have learned more about pipes and tobacco in the last 7 or 8 years due to the internet and boards like this one.

Jim
 
besides the cobs that my buddies and i made at about age ten, my first real pipe was a Willard billiard, 1958, a premium with two pouches of Raleigh--bought it at a local drug store; small town in texas--14 years of age, no questions asked--

still smoke Raleigh occasionally; still have the pipe, although modified--don't smoke it all that much any more--

all my Grabows over the years have been excellent smokers--also back to using cobs after over five decades of ignoring them--
 
I had three first pipes: my first was what I know realize was a friend's Dad's Falcon when we were maybe 13, literally behind a barn with some Borkum Riff. The second "first" pipe was a good middling shop brand pipe given to me by a friend who got it at Druquer's in Berkeley in perhaps 1985 when I was smoking cigars and didn't realize what a Mecca the shop was (incidently, there was this kid behind the counter named Pease, if I recall ...). My friend smoked Captain Black so I took to it. The third was when I began smoking a pipe more then occassionally in 1989 or so. Still have that Savinelli in the rack for obvious sentimental reasons, though it hasn't been filled for years.
 
Tim_Haggerty":eabu5zod said:
I had three first pipes: my first was what I know realize was a friend's Dad's Falcon when we were maybe 13, literally behind a barn with some Borkum Riff. The second "first" pipe was a good middling shop brand pipe given to me by a friend who got it at Druquer's in Berkeley in perhaps 1985 when I was smoking cigars and didn't realize what a Mecca the shop was (incidently, there was this kid behind the counter named Pease, if I recall ...). My friend smoked Captain Black so I took to it. The third was when I began smoking a pipe more then occassionally in 1989 or so. Still have that Savinelli in the rack for obvious sentimental reasons, though it hasn't been filled for years.
Click to expand...

Seem to me that I read an article a few months back in which Pease says that Druguer's was his hangout place! Small world.
 
Spring 1958 - on a charter bus from Columbus, Ohio to Renssalear, Indiana. As a 7th grader. We made a pit stop, little store about 1/3 of the way and I got a four inch pipe, brand unknown and pack of Arabian Nights tobacco. No questions asked. Smoked on the bus. Bring me the old days but NOT that tobacco! :D
 
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