Kaz Walters, a 28-year-old pipe specialist at SmokingPipes.com, and his wife, 25-year-old pipe photographer Mary Walters, are among the Millennials who’ve embraced the hobby. (Photo by Mary Walters of Walters Photography)
I rarely saw my grandfather with a pipe. My mother didn’t like him smoking around us kids, and he respected that. When he passed away, my family donated his pipes, thinking no one wanted them—which at the time was true. It would be three more years before a chance meeting with a friend at his favorite tobacco shop turned me, a few weeks after my 35th birthday, into a pipe smoker.
“A pipe fundamentally is piece of wood with a hole and a mouthpiece stuck in it. But you are talking about an object that, when well-made, can last a hundred years.”
Long gone, I only remember my grandfather’s pipes as bent-wood statues, silent in a cherry rack on his desk. When I light up, I can’t ache with a memory I never had of my grandfather smoking those pipes. Instead, I try to stop time, if only for a few moments, during what a fellow pipe smoker 10 years my junior called “the productive work of turning leaves into ash.”
Unlike napkins, diamonds, and golfing—traditions that Millennials have supposedly “killed”—pipe smoking is very much alive. In 2014, ABC News postulated that younger smokers and collectors were bringing pipe smoking, a hobby reminiscent of great-uncles and blazered villains of ’80s teen comedies, back into fashion. Nearly five years later, it’s largely agreed that pipe smoking’s youthquake hasn’t saved the industry or the hobby, either, but it has changed how pipe smoking appears in our minds: It’s unlikely that the image of an American smoking a pipe will be only associated with the dark-wooded dens of men in retirement ever again.
This artful photograph of a pipe, a lighter, and loose tobacco reveals the hobby’s aesthetic appeal. (Photo by Mary Walters of Walters Photography)
“I think people look at how sped up life is now, and in wanting to slow down, mistake pipe smoking for the feeling of a slower, simpler time,” says Kaz Walters, 28, pipe specialist at SmokingPipes.com in Longs, South Carolina, the world’s largest online retailer of pipes. Walters reports that about 60 percent of his colleagues are around his age or a little bit older, and the company’s marketing reflects that sensibility.
Benedict Cumberbatch in the BBC’s “Sherlock.”
Like microbrews and third-wave coffee, pipe tobacco has also benefited from an elevated national palate. Pipes themselves are objects of craftsmanship, inherently collectible and showoffable in the age of Instagram. The cigar boom of the 1990s that seemed to leave pipes behind ultimately revealed their charms: an association with refinement and wisdom (see Sherlock Holmes, Albert Einstein, Gandalf); a pleasant, non-aggressive smell; and an inherently slow pastime in an overclocked age. (It is impossible to enjoyably smoke a pipe fast. You’ll overheat the tobacco and burn your tongue.)
The slow charms of pipe-smoking notwithstanding, everyone I spoke with was aware of the health hazards of the hobby: Even though it’s easier to smoke less at a sitting with a pipe than with cigarettes and cigars, the cancer risks are the same. But for pipe smokers, such risks are outweighed by the benefits.
Meriadoc “Merry” Brandybuck (played by Dominic Monaghan) is a hobbit that takes pleasure in pipe smoking in “The Lord of the Rings” film trilogy, which debuted between 2001 and 2003.
“I used to sit in traffic for several hours a day commuting, and it would help me calm down,” says Tyler Thomas, a 23-year-old sound engineer in St. Paul, Minnesota, who picked up the hobby at age 16 after seeing hobbits enjoying pipes in “The Lord of the Rings” films.
However, testimonials do not equal trend lines. Greg Vickers, 60, membership-services manager of the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association in Washington, D.C., says only, “I hear word-of-mouth from our pipe members that younger folk are coming in.” George Hoffman, 67, owner of Pipes by George in Raleigh, North Carolina, tells me that, unlike the cigar boom, pipe smoking has “been more gradual” to catch on. Mr. Hoffman estimates that about 35 percent of his customers now are between the ages of 20 and 30, as opposed to 5 to 10 percent a decade ago.
“Pipe smoking is seen as an old man’s pastime. But it is also a young man’s pastime,” says Marty Pulvers, 76, of Los Altos, California, who is co-producer of the annual West Coast Pipe Show based in Las Vegas. “Do I think this is a growing hobby? I’m hesitant to say that. It appears to be maintaining.”
Tyler Thomas, a 23-year-old sound engineer in St. Paul, Minnesota, began pipe smoking after seeing hobbits smoke in the “Lord of the Rings” movies. He’s pictured with his favorite pipe. (Courtesy of Tyler Thomas)
The hobby’s growth aside, pipe smokers are getting younger. As a result of their interest, long-drawn lines between smokers, collectors, and pipe carvers have blurred. Women are also taking up pipe smoking in greater numbers.
“Initially, it was hard,” says Mary Walters, 25, who once worked in customer service at SmokingPipes.com, the company that also employs her husband, Kaz, as a pipe specialist. “At the time, most of our customers were older gentlemen. Some didn’t believe I knew what I was talking about.”
“This is a small enough hobby already” says William “Cliff” Nelson, 59, editor of Pipes and Tobaccos Magazine in Raleigh, North Carolina, on his industry’s seeming lack of room for women. “We could use more of their participation.”
This vintage Sherlock Holmes-style pipe by Orlik is made from a calabash gourd with a meerschaum bowl insert. (Via eBay)
In fact, that’s changing. Mary Walters now runs a photography business shooting for several (mostly male) pipe carvers. At this year’s Chicago Pipe Show, she was inducted into the Pipe Divas, a respected group of women smokers, collectors, and artisans. In November, one of the founding Divas, Silver Grey, became the first female carver to win Best in Show at the West Coast Pipe Show.
Over at the Gentlemen’s Pipe Smoking Society (a Facebook group where Mary Walters is one of the moderators), Michael Curcio, 41, a credit-risk manager from Wantagh, New York, who owns about 40 pipes, also has a side business selling new and “estate” (i.e. pre-owned) pipes. Brent Bowden, 34, a stagehand from Portland, Oregon, decided he could restore estate pipes as a cost-effective way to build his collection. For the last 14 years, pipe maker Steve Norse, 39, has run Vermont Freehand, a one-stop supplier whose “main objective was to cater to new pipe makers,” the majority of whom are in their 20s.
Steve Norse, a pipe maker Vermont Freehand, mostly sells pipe-making supplies to younger artisans. (Photo by Peter Miller Photography)
“I used to see a few new pipe makers on social media a year,” Steve Morrisette, 65, a 20-year veteran of the craft based in Nashville, tells me. “Now I see three or four a week. And over 90 percent of those new pipe makers are under 30.”
Nattily dressed in a necktie and fedora, Morrisette’s a fixture at pipe shows. His own pipes routinely command $400 to $500 and are as respected as his pointed yet fair assessments of the industry.
He explains that when he first started selling commercially, a well-regarded artisan could get anywhere from $500 to $900 for a single pipe. That price, he says, has been dropping as younger, newer makers enter the space and assume that by following the steps of instructional YouTube videos and posting their work to social media, they will see an immediate payoff.
Show & Teller Pipesmoker says these were his grandfather’s pipes, collected between the 1940s and 1960s. (Posted on Show & Tell by Pipesmoker)
What’s happened, Morrisette continues, is a saturated market and a focus on pipes as collectibles rather than precision instruments. At the same time, he says, the industry has done a poor job explaining the months and years of honing the craft behind fine pipes and educating customers about what they’re paying for.
“I think people look at how sped up life is now, and in wanting to slow down, mistake pipe smoking for the feeling of a slower, simpler time.”
“A pipe fundamentally is piece of wood with a hole and a mouthpiece stuck in it,” Morrisette tells me. “But you are talking about an object that, when well-made, can last a hundred years. You don’t get to know how to put the various parts of a pipe together in a way that will last until a few come back to you broken.”
A pleasurable smoke relies on many things—the thickness of the tobacco chamber’s walls, position of the drought hole where breath meets burning leaves, smoothness of the passage from tobacco up the shank to the pipe’s mouthpiece. Even minuscule sloppiness can make the experience clumsy, hot, or painful. A great-looking, badly engineered pipe is a knickknack.
An antique Native American pipe shaped like a bird. (Via eBay)
The earliest-known smoking pipes were found in Native American burial mounds are at least 2,000 years old and look a bit like knickknacks themselves, palm-sized surfboards with animals figurines emerging from the board’s middle. Historians believe the animals represented spiritual presences in the communities that made these pipes, the act of smoking linked with religious ritual.
Pipe tobacco and smoking didn’t reach Europe until the early 1500s where, as an enormously profitable cash crop, it became both a method of relaxation and indelibly linked to economic might and power: Whole cities in Europe, like Bristol and Glasgow, grew rich on the import of tobacco from slave plantations in North America. Pipe smoking took its place in our collective tableaux of spaces imbued with the benefit of those riches—political war rooms, corporate executive meetings, and university supper clubs—exclusionary spaces defined by access acquired through race, gender, and economic status.
This 1627 artwork “Gentlemen Smoking and Playing Backgammon in an Interior” by Dutch Golden Age painter Dirck Hals depicts 17th-century pipe smoking culture.
None of this kept African Americans from the hobby, even before the Civil Rights era: Legendary bluesman Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown marketed his own blend of pipe tobacco. The relative affordability of pipe smoking over cigarette or cigars (cigarettes/cigars are gone the moment you finish smoking; a tin of pipe tobacco can last a month) led to its working-class popularity as well. The ranks of famous women pipe smokers include such pioneering feminists as Simone de Beauvoir and Angela Davis. But say the word “pipe smoker” and, at least until very recently, the image brought to mind is probably an older white man in a sweater and a dark leather chair.
We’re several generations past the time when parents sent their sons to Yale with pipes and tobacco alongside a fresh toothbrush and new shoes. So it doesn’t feel quite right to say pipe smoking is going through “growing pains,” despite large shifts brought on by technology and culture. Maybe we’re talking about “inclusion pains,” as the hobby grows younger, more wired, and more diverse. Pipe smoking remains, as Kaz Walters put it, “like the wizarding world of Harry Potter. Everywhere, but hidden just below the surface.”
The cover of Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown’s 1992 album, “No Looking Back.”
I am, at best, an adequate pipe smoker. I pack the tobacco too loose, puff too quickly, get frustrated re-lighting. At pipe-club meetings, I sit next to wiser members, ask versions of the same questions, thank them for their patience. They never seem to mind because we never feel in a hurry.
Younger pipe smokers often speak of this, of the hobby connecting them to a past they only know from movies and old photographs. They conflate nostalgia with the feeling it creates that time has stopped.
A vintage 1980s “Sara Eltang” Dublin pipe, a series that Danish pipe maker Tom Eltang named after his daughter. This unusually craggy piece is made of briar, with an acrylic stem. (Via eBay)
Perhaps memory of my grandfather would burn brighter when I smoke if I had known him that way. But when I select a pinch of tobacco, strike a match, and wait for it to ignite, I feel as if the years between my grandfather’s death and now have disappeared. For me, time is held apart from its turnings, and my fellows at the long table at the back the tobacco shop are here seeking the same sensation.
It’s a lie we tell ourselves, that we control the clock hands of our lives, but it’s at the very human heart of why we build homes, make art, or collect beautiful things: To order and mark a moment even when we know it will soon disappear like smoke.
This late 19th-century pipe by esteemed pipe maker Joseph Koppenhagen is described as “an exquisitely shaped meerschaum with a bent-bore curved shank, its amber mouthpiece remains perfectly preserved, its intricately engraved sterling mountings look like new, and atop its bowl it features a hinged wind cap topped with a rich orange amber dome.” (From the collection of John Fabris and offered by SecondHandSmokes.com on eBay)
Kevin Smokler is the author of the books “Brat Pack America: A Love Letter to 80s Teen Movies” and “Practical Classics: 50 Reasons to Reread 50 Books you Haven’t Touched Since High School.” He lives in San Francisco.
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“The ranks of famous women pipe smokers include such pioneering feminists as Simone de Beauvoir and Angela Davis.”
Not to mention former First Lady Rachel Jackson, whose hot-headed husband Andy fought and killed a man in a duel to defend her honor. It wasn’t over her pipe-smoking habit, though.
Superficially, it was about the fact that her divorce from her first husband hadn’t been finalized when she married Andrew Jackson. In reality, it was about politics being dirty even way back then.
Lest anybody begin to wax nostalgic about what a great guy Jackson was for defending his little woman: he did plenty of things that don’t bear close scrutiny, to say the least.
Also–lest anybody begin to wax nostalgic about pipe smoking, and think of taking up the habit: I’m sure most people know about the cancer risks of tobacco smoking in general, and pipe smoking in particular, but be aware that it’s a risk factor for macular degeneration, and abdominal aortic aneurysm. My late father who inhaled Half & Half pipe tobacco down into his toenails for about a quarter of a century had both of those ailments.
Do what you want, but know the risks. Gratuitous PSA over and out. :-)
Those vintage pipes are beautiful, for sure. However, fellow millenials, I cringe reading, “But for pipe smokers, [health] risks are outweighed by the benefits.” You sure about that? Visit a radiation unit or oncology ward and tell me if that doesn’t change your mind.
Good article. I’m a third generation pipe smoker and I’ve smoked pipes, off and on, for over 40 years. A very relaxing hobby. One thing that should be pointed out is one does not need to or should inhale the smoke when smoking a pipe. Pipe tobaccos are very favorable and you don’t need to inhale to enjoy the tobacco. My wife started the hobby about four years ago and is also one of the Pipe Divas that meet at the pipe shows.
Wonderful article!
To the moral critics of pipe smoking here’s one of my favorite quotes, “I don’t want any of your statistics; I took your whole batch and lit my pipe with it. I hate your kind of people. You are always ciphering out how much a man’s health is injured, and how much his intellect is impaired, and how many pitiful dollars and cents he wastes in the course of ninety-two years’ indulgence in the fatal practice of smoking; and in the equally fatal practice of drinking coffee; and in playing billiards occasionally; and in taking a glass of wine at dinner, etc. etc. And you never try to find out how much solid comfort, relaxation, and enjoyment a man derives from smoking in the course of a lifetime (which is worth ten times the money he would save by letting it alone), nor the appalling aggregate of happiness lost in a lifetime by your kind of people from not smoking.” — Mark Twain from the Moral Statistician
Our Seattle Pipe Club just lost one of our favorite & dear members Jim Lissner. A life long pipe smoker, he was 96 years old.
Great, well thought out article that highlights what is hopefully a continued trend among the growth of pipe smoking.
One thing I’d quibble with is the statement that pipe and cigar smoking have the same cancer risk as cigarette. Aside from the fact that the cigar and pipe smoker do not inhale – reducing their risk significantly, there are also fewer (read, no) additives to premium pipe and cigar tobacco – which are often the cancer-causing ingredients associated with tobacco. There have been numerous studies – some of which are pointed to in articles like this one – http://pipesmagazine.com/blog/pipe-smoking-lifestyle/where-will-pipes-be-in-100-years/.
While certainly not risk-free, the risks are significantly less than cigarettes.
Other than that, well done!
One of the most exiting new Pipemakers This Century is Moon Valley Pipe Works in Boise Idaho
Kevin: I posted a query on your Facebook site, requesting that you contact me about this article, and I hope that I hear from you: I’ve looked everywhere for information on “pipe divas” w/o success. Can you enlighten me? I would like to be more descriptive/expansive about this league or society in an article I am crafting now.
Ben R.
Kevin, “One thing I’d quibble with is the statement that pipe and cigar smoking have the same cancer risk as cigarette.”
I read back through, and couldn’t find that statement, but I suspect that you thought you saw it in my earlier comment.
No, pipe and cigar smoking don’t have the same cancer risks as cigarette smoking, neither in the rates nor the types, but there are still cancer risks.
Good comment about there being less additives in pipe and cigar tobacco; I’ve long wondered whether that was the case.
I was a poor college student in the late 60’s and early 70’s. I was given one that was all of $50.00 for Christmas. All I could afford was pipe tobacco. I recall being able to smoke in some classes. I quite when my first was born. I still have the pipe and it still feels great in my hand. Borkem Riff (sp) tobacco was .45 cents a pouch.
Two things. First, Matt Guss, who pointed out a lifelong pipe smoker died at 96. Is he implying that this extreme rare exception means that pipe smoking can’t shorten one’s life span. There’s always a freak exception. But his insinuation is akin to stating that crashing planes is safe because one person out of hundreds survived.
Second, if pipe smokers typically do not inhale, then what’s the purpose of having it in your mouth? Why not just light the thing and then set it down on a desk and let it burn so you can smell it as you breathe? I’ve never tried a pipe, but I’m not seeing the point of having it hang from your mouth if you’re not sucking the smoke into your mouth.
I tripped over this and just wanted to pass on a bit of info because no time at the moment and therefore may have missed this point. You may enjoy looking at “Reborn Pipes”. Steve is amazing. Cheers!
I’m a weekend cigar and occasional pipe smoker. I only found out later in life that my Native American/Irish granfather was also a pipe smoker. I smoked cigarettes as a teenager and hated it. We NEED more people who enjoy fine tobacco to FIGHT against the current despotic, Machiavellian trend of associating fine tobacco with the same health risks of cigarettets or other products such as vape devices which are inhaled. My belief is such movements are anti-American and I fear the antiseptic future that awaits (or which is already here) if we do not assert our rights. Smoking a cigar or pipe is a spiritual and dare I say religious right. Can we agree on that and reclaim our traditions and rights? I believe millennial hipsters are anoying and are simply trying to be contrarian, or narcissisticly needing people to look at them as “unique” but I support their rights. Likewise, if they gain a deeper understanding of the craftsmanship, spirituality, tradition, and joy of fine tobacco then it cannot be a bad thing. How can we unite to protect our heritage?
It’s been eleven months now that I have not had a puff; this after a forty four year smoking habit. No, I didn’t smoke pipes, or cigars and certainly not commercial, pre-packed cigarettes. I was a ‘rollie man’; starting at sixteen with hand rolling tobacco like ‘Golden Virginia’, ‘Old Holborn’, ‘Samson’ and ‘Drum’. I had my first chest x-ray, in many decades, just last year and was quietly amazed that the scan showed no particular damage as a result of my smoking habit. I do feel; and taste, that commercial cigarettes are pumped full of additives whereas hand rolling tobacco is simply harvested, dried and then shredded with no additional chemicals added except perhaps some ‘flavours’. I suspect that pipe tobaccos follow the same process. Still, there’s not a day that passes that I wish I still had a smoke in my hand; it’s an opportunity to slow down and relax a little and I miss that part of my former days. However, nicotine is an addictive and demanding mistress and I’m determined to stay the course.
Just a couple of thoughts to add to the thread …
Comment 10: “Second, if pipe smokers typically do not inhale, then what’s the purpose of having it in your mouth? Why not just light the thing and then set it down on a desk and let it burn so you can smell it as you breathe? I’ve never tried a pipe, but I’m not seeing the point of having it hang from your mouth if you’re not sucking the smoke into your mouth.”
+++++ If you haven’t smoked a pipe (or cigar), then it’s probably hard to understand that most pipe and cigar smokers enjoy the scent, flavor, and feeling of the smoke itself; we don’t need (or even want) to draw it into our lungs to appreciate its nuances. You do draw the smoke into your mouth, sometimes channeling it partly through the nostrils. And there’s also the tactile and sensory pleasure of holding a pipe in one’s hand, especially when the bowl is warm. I especially enjoy the feeling of the bit of a pipe in my mouth as I sip smooth pipe smoke.
It’s a real shame that the general public has such a simple understanding of tobacco use. For most people, all forms of smoking are the same: equally harmful to health, equally unwise, equally anti-social (if not immoral). Smoking a pipe is NOT like smoking cigarettes or inhaling from a vape pen, which are basically nicotine delivery systems. Yes, a pipe can be used for nic delivery, but that’s just not why most people choose to smoke one. When I was a teenager – fascinated by pipes and the ritual of pipe smoking – it was generally understood that a person could choose pipes and cigars as a hobby, rather than as a habit. Part of the allure of pipes was that I could smoke them without developing a chemical need for nicotine. I’ve never smoked anything but a pipe, and I’ve never “needed” to smoke my pipe (I sometimes go for weeks at a time without smoking a single bowl). I don’t get why people can’t understand that simple fact.
Other aspects of the pipe hobby that always appealed to me were the beauty of a well-made pipe, the wide variety of flavors and aromas of pipe tobacco (I’ve never been bored), the relaxing effects of sipping a pipe over the span of 45 minutes or an hour, and the camaraderie of pipe smoking aficionados.
Hi
Funny enough I find that the older the pipe smoker the more unaware he or she is of any resurgence in pipe smoking: Some vehemently denying such things. Why? Years and years of pipe smoking trending downwards, so few pipe related B&Ms, isolation, gender gap, computer gap, personal witness, fatalism etc all play a role. Even when I present the evidence they shake their head and ask when have I seen someone on the street smoking a pipe or like questions. They are (with exceptions) apparently less aware of or unable to make a connection with the changing landscape around them. Some of these elder statesmen look for what used to be true as revival, while dismissing the other evidences as trivial. I remind them that while it is nothing like the 1960-70s or beforehand, many younger smokers do enjoy their pipe at home and other places were perceived offense is kept to a minimum. The younger smokers also make use of online stores, YouTube and online pipe communities more than B&Ms and hang out with folks of a similar interests which limits their visibility to some of the older folks.
> First, Matt Guss, who pointed out a lifelong pipe smoker died at 96. Is he implying that this extreme rare exception means that pipe smoking can’t shorten one’s life span.
There is some evidence that pipe smokers live a few years longer than non-tobacco users. This is correlation and not causation, obviously, and I’d guess it has more to do with the kind of people who smoke a pipe. Pipe folk tend to be laid back and non-hostile.
It has already been stated, but worth re-emphasizing that cigarette tobacco is purposely manufactured with many harmful additives as well as additional nicotine. Pipe tobacco, is kept in primarily its virgin natural form with the exception of an occasional flavoring which is usually also a natural element. Many pipe tobaccos have no additional flavorings at all and some types of tobacco used in pipe tobacco have far less nicotine.
I have read hundreds of testimonials from pipe smokers over the years and find that the vast majority do not purposely inhale their pipe smoke and also do not experience the “nicotine craving” that most cigarette smokers experience. It’s because of these things that many have stated that they can put down their pipe for weeks and sometimes months without feeling a fierce craving for nicotine. In fact some, who live in locations that experience the four seasons, and also have wives that will not allow smoking in the house, will go the entire winter months with their pipes on the shelf until the weather permits them to smoke outside again.
Also, the things mentioned are indicators of the reason for the wide range of frequency that pipe smokers participate. Cigarette smokers tend to smoke much more frequently than pipe smokers. Of course there is always the rare exception where a pipe smoker might have a pipe in his mouth from the moment they get out of bed and turn the lights off at night, but I have read many accounts where pipe smokers will only smoke their pipe once or twice a week at the most.
Yes, the risks are present, but it’s like with many things we do in life. Scripture makes the statement….”All Things in Moderation”. I believe the person that smokes a pipe twice a week is probably at much less health risk than the guy that wolfs down two double cheeseburgers, French fries and a milkshake for lunch everyday of his working life. I would bet my money that the later will beat the pipe smoker to the grave many years in advance.
There are many things we can do in life, in excess, that is bound to kill us before our time.
I recall when I was in my twenties and my insurance agent was at my house and reviewing my life insurance policy and he asked me if I was a smoker and I told him that I smoked a pipe on occasion. He took his ink pen and said out loud…”Non-Smoker”. I then reminded him that I said I smoked a pipe once in a while and he replied…”pipe smoking is not considered smoking” by the insurance industry because health studies indicated that the risks for pipe smoking was only slightly higher than that of non-smokers. He also went on to say that some studies indicate that pipe smokers often times out live non-smokers”.
When I quit smoking cigarettes in 1972 it was very difficult, barely made it. In 1978 I took up pipe smoking after nearly six tobacco free years. I made a vow with myself that I would never inhale and I stuck to it. Every year I would quit the pipe for one week just to make sure I wasn’t getting too addicted to nicotine. I had only minor withdrawal symptoms. I gave up the pipe in the late 1980’s when I realised my food tastes better as a nonsmoker. The dental hygienists told me my gum pockets were improving. Oral cancer was also a concern. If it weren’t for those issues I would probably still be smoking the pipe to this day. There was no pleasure in cigarettes.
I think the pipe smoking never caught on with the younger generations (and many in my generation) because they never learned how to keep the thing lit. The tobacco has to be packed evenly so the air goes through the tobacco and not just around the tight spots.
The health risks of pipe smoking compared to other tobacco uses are not the same. Far from it. A little research will show that comment to be absolutely false. Pipe smoking , in research by he surgeon general, found non inhaling pipe smokers actually lived longer than non smokers. There is such a proliferation of fake science, slanted gov. grants, and hysteria about smoking that legit studies have been ignored. With a little effort and research the truth will shock you……….A former research science writer.
The growth of women in the hobby and industry of pipe smoking is actually larger than implied in this excellent article. In addition to Silver Gray, another founding Pipe Diva, Sally Gottliebson, started in the business working in a brick and mortar store after retiring from teaching for thirty years. After over ten years in the shop she opened her own web and pipe show based business, The Pipe Tart, ten years ago. Also, Pat Morgan, a co-owner of Missouri Meerschaum, is another pipe industry professional woman and Pipe Diva.
A visit to any of the many pipe shows around the U. S. every year will prove the plethora of men and women of multiple generations that are breathing life into our community.
This is an excellent article It’s so gratifying and refreshing to read something positive on this subject.
I shared this essay with “Pipestud” (Pipestud.com) a.k.a. Steve Fallon, and he was equally impressed.
Thanks for a fine job.
Thank you for nice article. I’m 3rd generation pipe smoker, and she’s best friend in this fast moving, media and QE World. Try, relax & enjoy ..compares to sailing on open Sea.. AtB
Very interesting and pleasant essay to read. I used to sneak my dad’s pipe and enjoy a bowl when I was a lad. I forget what kind of tobacco he smoked but it came in an orange can about 4 inches diameter and about 2 inches high. I think it was Dutch and had a ship on it. I remember the aroma, it was almost magic and I would recognise it if I ever got a whiff of it again, even though it was almost 60 years ago.
Please post an essay on the history and benefits of meat eating sometime so we can enjoy the same kind of comments from vegetarians and vegans as the non-smokers entertained us with here. Thank you.
I remember taking it up in my final year of High School, this was back in 2013. I was a cigarette smoker at the time and was looking for something that was just a pleasurable smoking experience. Being somewhat of a collector I built a half decent rotation of affordable briars and a few corncobs, one of them being a Viking Classic with some very beautiful flame grain. I switched from cigarettes to vaping over the years and gave up vaping about a year ago for nicotine free tobacco pouches to feed my addiction. Meanwhile my briars always sit ready for when I need a moment to myself to get lost in thought or the lack thereof. I would never call pipes an addiction and even if I were to quit my nicotine habit completely and not consume tobacco free snus daily I’d still keep my briars and tobacco around. Also with how the world has been I have found that I really needed to revisit my rotation, nothing really beats sitting outside in the shade letting the smoke take your troubles with it on the breeze.
I’m happy that someone is taking a positive side on this topic. Great read!
Evening. I am looking for a plaster or clay pipe mold to be made in “barbottine” casting. Can you help me? Thank you very much. Greetings.