What is your favorite style \ shape pipe?

Billiards, bulldogs, fullbents, Oom Pauls, brandy, pots, I think I could appreciate any shape as long as it smoked well and is fairly clentchable. Not too fond of freehands though and prefer the classic shapes.

Did I mention Dublin......

I also like Billiards & Apples, but Dublins are the focus of my collection.

Any close relatives to these two shapes are ok too.

Billiards - straight, not bent.

Bulldogs - bent, but straight if its more of a bullcap (flattened bowl that is wider and more like a saucer).

*** Now, this is a twist:

Billiards: smooth preferred.
Bulldogs: rusticated preferred.

go figure.

All straight, all old, and generally filled with a codger burley. Oh yeah, I own a few bulldogs too, mostly straights.

hawkbills. You can see them online at my site.

Billard, and I have a real liking for canadians. They're nice and light, and I like to clench while smoking.

Need I say more?

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Well, no favorites per se, but I do have a list of pipe likes and dislikes.

Likes:

Saddle and half-saddle bits
Quarter-bent pipes
Straight pipes
Billiards
Apples
Pots
Bent Dublins
Silver embellishments

Dislikes:

Bulldogs
Straight Dublins
P-lips
Sea rock/coral rustication
Volcanos
Canadians and Lovats
Oom Pauls
Hawkbills
Non-black stems
Gold or brass embellishments
Calabash

Boy, there sure is a lot of stuff that I do not like.

How can you not like straight Dublins... and Bulldogs ? And not black stems... some of the most awesome stems are varieties of Lucite and Cumberland of course.... sheesh !!!!!

I agree on the Calabash though, ack... ugly ass pipe. And p-lips do suck.... but Dublins and Bulldogs ???

I like bent Dublins. One of my favorite pipes is my Stanwell #19. However, I do not think that bowl shape looks good on a straight pipe.

I knew I would catch a rash of crap for the bulldog comment in this crowd. But since the day that I started looking at and shopping for pipes, they have stood out as being ugly. Occasionally, I come across one that seems proportioned correctly (there was an old Kaywoodie bulldog on eBay this week that I actually liked), but for the most part they just look stunted and disproportional.

To each their own, though. That just means more ugly-ass Dublins and bulldogs out there for you. ;)

It seems like alot of like minded pipe smokers. I don't like P lip pipes either. They just don't feel right to me. I've got a full bent Grabow Omega from when Omega first came out that has a p lip. I never bought another. Some like them though.
Dave

Every Pete I've owned that had them has long since been sold off on ebay. Regular fish tail bits work best for me.

At least thats how I feel 99% of the time ... the other day I was acutally considering buying a Pete with a P-lip just to remind myself what they were like. Then sanity came back.

this one is pretty easy for me...I like pretty much everything...

but if I were to have to narrow down to six or seven pipes (which I have done for this year) basically it ends up as straight billiards, bulldogs, and other similar classic forms.

as far as picky-er specifications...I like my pipes to be group 4 or bigger, and I like a wider tobacco chamber in relation to the depth...tall skinny has never worked out for me...and I have also had little luck with the tapered bowl found in many Dublins...and I like the walls of my pipes to be sufficiently thick that they don't get very hot...also...I am with you quaffer on gold embellishments...I just don't like them

so that's about it for my likes/dislikes

Cheers,

Josh

'Fraid so. These last few years, I really only want straight stemmed billiards, apples and dublins, and I will gladly accept a belge or cutty-shape. I admire the freehands and the more unique shapes for their artistry but standard classic shapes, grp 3-4 bowls. KWs are the ideal size for my preferred smoking. I really like Petersons, probably have more than 25 and all have straight stems and most w/ p-lips. OTOH, I have had a (now-controlled and virtually gone) obsession w/ Custombilts. I find them too bulky and unwieldy these days. I have purchased a few pipes from Alan Stevenson, all of mine are fine smokers. These are classically-inspired shapes and straight stems.

bent bulldogs and biege belges

I checked out your Hawkbills. The more I see, the more I like them. Seeing all of them at once like on your blog is even more impressive.

Have you ever seen a small Hawkbill or are they all generally big pipes?

T

Bent billiards seem to rule my collection. Mostly 307/9s Petersons with 3 Mark Twains thrown in.
However... Having discovered Willmer recently, I'm starting to really like straight billiards and dublins.
I like the P-lip but find it feeling like I've stuck a log in my mouth after smoking a Charatan DC.
My best smokers are pots. It has something to do with the bowl diameter to depth ratio I think.

For the longest time my favourite shapes were the oom paul and the full bent.Now my taste has switched over to the blowfish and the brandy...

Best,
D.J.

They come in all sizes. I use the smaller ones for flake tobaccos such as Solani Aged Burley Slices and the larger GG ones for English mixtures.

I have seen good and bad examples of almost every classic shape that i can think of.
I must however put in a word, in defense of the mighty if not maligned calabash. While not a lover of the meerschaum bowled gourd bodied contraptions, I have a pair of Brebbia First briar models in both tan and plum sea rock type finnish. The 21mm X 48mm moderately tapered bowl makes for a solid smoke. These are only about half the size of the aforementioned gourd and hang from the jaw most comfortably.
I also have a small Stanwell example that I am in the process of breaking in. It also smokes well though it hasn't reached it's full potential as yet.
My favourite pipe at the moment is a traditional handmade dublin by WO Larsen. I found this pipe stashed in a porcelain tobacco jar I bought from a garage sale. Unsmoked and still in its little satin-silk drawstring pouch. Curiously, the briar on this pipe feels extraordinarily hard in comparisson with other similar smooth finishes.

P.S. Thumbs down to the P-lip. It seems to direct the smoke straight onto to the front upper palate, just behind the teeth. I do not find this comfortable at all.

JM

That is awesome! How does it smoke?
Regards,
Dave