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Show us your Pipes

Smoking my Nording Hunter, 1997 "Canada Goose"

IMG_0227.JPG
 

Highlander

A-List Customer
Messages
473
Location
Missouri
Thank you for the nice comment on my 35 year hobby :) I started in college and have just enjoyed my pipe (I did quit for about 4 years 10 years ago... and then I just remember how much I enjoyed a pipe on the deck after work).

To answer your question about blends. Yes and no. The Dunhill Elizabethan has Perique in it. Sometimes my tummy tolerates Perique and sometimes not. Mostly I smoke a nice easy aromatic blend, and makes it easy. If however the season is right and I am in the mood for an English Blend, I'll use 190 Grain/Kosher Salt and I'll pretty much clean up the two pipes I plan to smoke the English Blend in.

Hope that answers your question, if not let me know, I'll smoke a bowl and try and answer it correctly. Have a great evening.

Have you ever been to TobaccoReviews.com ( http://www.tobaccoreviews.com/ ) there's some pretty good reviews on the various blends etc.
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
Thank you for the nice comment on my 35 year hobby :) I started in college and have just enjoyed my pipe (I did quit for about 4 years 10 years ago... and then I just remember how much I enjoyed a pipe on the deck after work).

To answer your question about blends. Yes and no. The Dunhill Elizabethan has Perique in it. Sometimes my tummy tolerates Perique and sometimes not. Mostly I smoke a nice easy aromatic blend, and makes it easy. If however the season is right and I am in the mood for an English Blend, I'll use 190 Grain/Kosher Salt and I'll pretty much clean up the two pipes I plan to smoke the English Blend in.

Hope that answers your question, if not let me know, I'll smoke a bowl and try and answer it correctly. Have a great evening.

Have you ever been to TobaccoReviews.com ( http://www.tobaccoreviews.com/ ) there's some pretty good reviews on the various blends etc.

Thanks for the reply & link.
My first pipe was when I was 19 in the military many moons ago.
It was a "Missouri" corn pipe & a cherry blend tobacco. :D
I don't remember what liquid cleaner I used to clean the insides
but the aroma was real nice. I only smoke the pipe on occasions.
 

Highlander

A-List Customer
Messages
473
Location
Missouri
Ha, Missouri Merchaum.... The Corn Cob Pipe. I ride my bicycle down at Washington, Missouri all of the time, and the Corn Cob Factory right down on the Missouri River... :) I have one of their pipes. And yes, I recall Cherry and Apple blend tobacco when I was in college. Easy to smoke.
 

hatguy1

One Too Many
Messages
1,145
Location
Da Pairee of da prairee
I was going to be in that area awhile back and - for the history of the place - emailed asking about a tour. Strangely enough Missouri Merchaum told me they don't allow tours. Something about liability....


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:

Highlander

A-List Customer
Messages
473
Location
Missouri
WOW, that makes no sense at all. I would understand a nuclear reactor doing that.. But cutting and drilling a corn cob???
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
Time for a BUMP, Buds! Here are the NOS Turkish Meers my Pop picked up in the mid 1970s. Not top shelf amber stems, but nicely done, nonetheless!
View attachment 157963 View attachment 157964
The top right one has been smoked, but the rest are NEW.
NOW what do I do with them?!

Rotate and smoke one depending on the
mood and tobacco blend.
Soon you will also enjoy the color of
each pipe as it takes a beautiful hue of
it's own.
 
Messages
10,584
Location
Boston area
Rotate and smoke one depending on the
mood and tobacco blend.
Soon you will also enjoy the color of
each pipe as it takes a beautiful hue of
it's own.

I’ve used and watched a couple of meerschaums mellow over the years, (got my first in 1977) but still prefer briars.

I’ll still smoke those two from wayback, but these should find better homes...
 

Just Jim

A-List Customer
Messages
307
Location
The wrong end of Nebraska . . . .
Why the preference for briars?
This is a question from a novice who
is curious! :)
Everyone will have a different answer on that. Here's mine, for whatever it might be worth.

Meershaum gives a sweet smoke, the porosity of the stone absorbs moisture and tars. Meer is like clay in that there is nothing about the material that adds or changes the flavor of the smoke. It is also fragile, a bit temperature-sensitive (get one that is cold too hot, too fast, and it can fracture). You have to be a little careful with it, let it cool before cleaning, protect it from bumps and rubs, etc. Stems can be a problem as well, in that the mortise and tenon joint where the stem inserts can crack easily--early meers usually had threaded joints that relied on the thread strength to hold the stem, rather than the tightness of a mortise joint.

Briar, on the other hand, will also absorb some moisture (typically not as much as meer), but it is far more durable and abrasion/impact-resistant. The wood is heat-resistant, and serves to keep the bowl cooler, making it easier to handle while smoking. You can clean the pipe right after smoking. You don't have to be as protective.

My kid brother talked me out of a nice little meerschaum pipe. He smoked it maybe 1-2 times a week, cleaning immediately after smoking, and set it on his desk to cool and dry for the next smoke. After a couple years, he brought it back to me: he'd managed to wear a hole in the bowl with the tip of the pipe cleaners he used, and there were small "flats" worn on the sides from laying on his desk. I gave him a nice briar that he's still smoking almost thirty years later. . . .

Today, I've smoked the same tobacco (Five Brothers) in several different pipes. The 100+ year old meerschaum I inherited from a great uncle, a briar Dinwoodie estate pipe I just finished cleaning, a new clay, and a briar I've had so long I can't remember when I got it (but I remember it was one of three I bought at the same time--go figure).

Each gave a different flavor to the smoke, and each had different "room notes". The meer and the clay were closest to the same. The Dinwoodie was OK, and once the carbon cake returns will be a good smoker. My old briar performed as always, with the bowl just getting warm about the time the tobacco was ash.

For me, the difference is that the meerschaum doesn't often leave the house. For many reasons, it is irreplaceable to me and I choose not to risk it. (I remember how I worried the entire time it was away when I had to have the stem replaced.)

The Dinwoodie. . . it is a lovely briar, with the original stem, but it is nearly a hundred years old. I'll be careful with it, but wouldn't hesitate to take it with me for a picnic.

The clay smokes nice, but I know at some point it will get broken (my late cutty lasting as long as it did was a fluke). I won't worry about it, but it will likely stay on my desk.

The old briar has gone on more than one trip. If I break it I'll wonder how I managed to do it; if I lose it I'll mourn it and move on.

My everyday goes everywhere with me pipe for around 30 years was a clay cutty, but now that I'm seeking a replacement it will almost certainly be a briar. Maybe a Dr. Grabow, maybe a Peterson or Dunhill or nameless maker, and maybe one off from the basket on the counter of the local tobacconist--I'll know it when I find it--but a briar. That way in 30 years I won't be trying to find a replacement.
 

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