Do you still have your 1st pipe?

A Stanwell Rondo Billiard bought at the Poul Hansen store along with matches, cleaners, Czech pipe tool and a tin of Paul Olsen's "Jubilæumsblandingen" a mild blend topped with a dash of red wine.

It was a bitter cold afternoon in November of 2004. 65 bucks and the Stannie was mine. It smoked like a charm from the get go and I still puff on it regularly. In fact, I think I'll just stuff it with some Escudo right now.

Lars Wiberg (slartie) | http://slartie.wordp... | http://www.flickr.co...

Entry level pipe - Dr. Grabow filtered half bent freehand.  

It's still a youngun, but I've put that bad boy thru his paces!!

I am a sentimental scale buster, so I'll keep him around...

Bob Rivet 

Smoke your pipe and be silent; there's only wind and smoke in the world.  ~Irish Proverb

Mine was a gift from my wife. I still have both the wife & the pipe. The pipe is an ebony Peterson system model 314. Oh, from such simple beginnings....

A meerschaum lined Dr Grabow billiard from arond 1986 I bought on a fishing trip in new hampshire. Still smoking it too (the pipe not the fish)

Tom

http://thepetersonpipeproject.blogspot.com

Yes. It's a spiral-shaped freehand bent made by J.M. Boswell in 1996. It's still among my favorites. I bought it right off the shelf, brand new, when I was working at a Tinder Box.

As I posted recently, I tossed out my pipes years ago in a misguided desire to quit in order to please my girlfriend of the time.  (sigh).  I still have my first pipe from when I started up again, a cheap basket pipe with a stem that's too loose, so I rarely use it.

I have heated the tenon somewhat with a heat gun to soften it and gently pressed the end against a wall, then cool it.  Makes it fatter, go easy you don't want to over do it.  You should be able to bring that baby back into the herd.

Thanks!  I'll give that a try.

Oh yeah.  It is a Missouri Meerchaum Corncob.  It actually still has a few smokes left in it too, but I will never get rid of it.  My second pipe which I never smoke is an old Dr. Grabow mini billiard.  It has a metal military bit in the stem.  I got it at an antique shop and the sick part is... I never sweetened the bowl!  I still haven't done it either!  There was so much cake in the bowl that I had to ream it several times to get it all out and the stem was still dirty, not to mention the oxidation and teeth marks on the mouthpiece.  Maybe it was disgusting, but to me it just added character to it.

 PS  I've tried heating tenons a few times and have had great success.

Still have the first pipe given to me when I was a young boy... Austin Dublin... and of course the first pipe I bought when I started back up again.

Both regulars in the rotation !

Yes Rick.I do... It's a rather mundane looking bent Dr.Grabow "Duke"....I bought it as an estate piece at a flea market for $5.00... I can still vividly remember when I thought $50.00 was way too much to spend on a hunk o' wood!

Best,

Dock

I bought my first pipe in 1966, smoking it in great pleasure until it seems to have disappeared about 1969, so I'm thinking that I lost it either at Kansas State in grad school, or coming back to Philadelphia, only to go back to FtRiley KS about 6 months later.  In that early period, and I really miss those days of $20 Ye Olde Barlings and $8.95 Charatan seconds, the only pipe that's still with me is a Butz-Choquin geant, which is like a modified Om Paul.  I picked that one up for 50-60 francs in Paris in 1971.  We were in Europe visiting my now USAF BIL/SIL in ZweiBrucken Germany, and five of us went to Paris. 

Sometimes, I think about all the pipes that passed through my "collection" over the years: the good and bad, a few great ones, a lot of dogs too.  Very depressing, all that briar now in other places and other hands.

Grabow freehand. Still got it and by far my favorite - for sentimental reasons may always be.

It is an aesthetic wreck though, I'll have to post a pic of it shortly. In my inexperience early off I'd twist the mouthpiece while hot and smoking it when I rotated it to various positions in my mush (because a cool pipe smoker has the bowl exactly vertical at all times...).

Well, I of course cracked the mouthpiece at the tenon. The only way I could get a good draw was to wrap the stem and mouthpiece joint with black stretchable rubber plumbers tape... Actually tightened it up a ton - it just ain't too pretty and I cant financially justify sending it to pipe doc.

yep i still have my first pipe, it  cost me 19.99 off the wall in a now disfunct shop here in town, i just could not see ever spending more then 20 bucks for a pipe. that was 6 years ago, man how times change.

where it came from, what was smoked  in it nor what ever became of it.  I was quite young, 20 - 22 or so and just remember wading into Warden's pond fly fishing for pike.  Still water and a bright sunny day - didn't catch any fish and, fairly obvious, the pipe didn't catch on either.  I would guess cigarettes were just too effective and much easier.

...a Missouri Meerchaum Corncob.

My first briar was a basket billiard which I use to smoke my English tobacco. It is also still with me.

 I still have mine. A basket pipe that I never smoke.

 I was smiling as I read Ashes remarks about giving up smoking for his girlfriend. What we will do for the love of a woman, hey?

I chalked it up to temporary insanity!  I'm much better now.

It is a nice little group 2 or 3 Prince by P. Piazzolo...not my favourite smoking pipe...just a hair too small for me...but I still use it and enjoy it when a shorter smoke is what I want...but beyond the smokeability...is the memories that are are attached to it...

Cheers,

Josh

That may be debatable Jim !!!

=o)

G'day,

Yes I still have it. A Falcon purchased in 1975. But I also have one pipe from my grandfather dating I think from around the 1900s. I smoke both from time to time.

My first pipe was a Dr. Grabow filter pipe w/screw-in stem. got it and a pouch of middleton's cherry when i was 13. i didn't smoke it a lot, but i loved that pipe. asst. principal @ school searched my things and took it away from me.

Years later, I bought another grabow and never smoked it much.

In 2003, I took it up regularly, but it's gone now. gave it and many other pipes away, some good smokers, estates i had found on the cheap, etc.

The cheap no good smokers I had collected had to be dispensed with when I moved, so Into The Woodstove They Went!! which was cool in a weird way, a lightening of my burdens, so to speak.

Occasionally, I think of a pipe or two I should have kept, but it matters not.

Hell, they'll make more. lol

Broken up cigar in a rust. sav
David Smith

A corncob that cost me 15 sek in '92/'93 somewhere.

I smoked alot of Caravelle and Greve Gilbert in that one, as well as home grown virginia.

The first time I smoked a briar pipe, I did not care for it anymore.

I think I have thrown it away, but I am no longer sure, have not used it for many years anyway

my first pipe. I started smoking in college in 1972. I bought a few pipes over the years. I moved so much a few were lost in moves. Then I caught the dreaded Castello virus and sold or traded all the pipes I had with the exception of a few gift/special pipes. So, no, I don't have my first, second, or even third pipe.

The first pipe that was ever given to me, which was my first pipe in my collection still sits on my rack. It is an Austin Dublin with a small silver band. Nice looking pipe, very classic, and a good smoker to this day.

The first pipe I ever bought was a Grabow, which I no longer possess. I believe my dog ate it. See, that excuse works for more than just homework !!!!

First new pipe when I started back to pipe smoking, I still have of course.

It is a Grabow bent Savoy I got at Walgreen's about 15 years ago. It still gets smoked once in a while.
It smokes a lot better than it did when I first got it, but then I had no idea what I was doing and nobody to ask, so I burnt my tongue a lot at first. I'm glad I didn't throw it out like I thought about doing!

Here's my Stanwell Rondo:

... and it's good to see you Jake. I hope your next post won't be a year in the works :) Join in.

My last move took away most remnants of my original collection lots of nice pipes there too. My bride insisted I stored them in the garage and there they stayed when we left (a rack of 12 or so including some pretty nice handmades) Didn't seem like that big of a deal at the time but now I wish to hell I would have grabbed them. I do have 3 pipes from my original (circa mid-70s) collection a gourd calabash, a huge meershaum and a bent briar. My first pipe though disappeared long ago. It was a hideous smurf blue grabow panel. I was 14 at the time and thought I was Hugh Hefner sitting in my room...uh, I mean study, smoking Rum and Maple in my smurf pipe. Shortly thereafter, I learned that Hef's blend of choice was Mixture 79 and became convinced that I'd get all the chicks if I smoked what Hef did. After a couple bowls of that wretched excrement I decided that Hef could have all the Mixture 79 on the planet; I would never again interrupt the availability of that...substance. To date, I think it is probably the most absolutely revolting thing I have ever smoked. It wasn't until a few years later that I figured out that the pipe had very little to do with Hef's prowess with the fairer sex. What a life though! His pieces don't even work anymore and he's bedding 3 hot chicks simultaneously every night. Remarkable.

$$$$$$ That is the way it is with Hef, no deposits, early withdrawal and still there is no loss of interest. For chicks, he is always been a good investment and it doesn't matter what he smokes.

The lore of the day said he smoked this crap in a high $$ Dunhill. Now there's no love lost between me and Dunhills but even a Dunghill doesn't deserve such treatment. I mean honestly I'd think twice about soaking up oil leaks on the carport with Mixture 79 it really is horrible. Hey that's it, imagine smoking Aunt Marge's perfume. A bowl of this junk and your pipe will taste like Old Lady Perfume until you are so fed up with it you throw it in the fireplace.