So it appears that Ronson, now known primarily for its lighter fluid and little else, once made and sold pipes. This is another gimmick pipe in the pattern of the Falcon, by which I mean it had a metal body with interchangeable screw-on briar bowls. The only Falcon I ever had didn't use any filters, however.
But the real gimmick here is the "labyrinth of passages" in the stem which were supposed to duplicate the length of a nine-inch churchwarden and thereby produce a cooler smoker. Did it really work? I have no way of knowing, but I'd guess it's more gimmick than real effect. The metal rod attachment that's part of the bit looks very much like the Kirsten design, so I don't know exactly how the "labyrinth" worked, but anything with a "labyrinth of passages" in the stem sounds to me like it would be very difficult to clean. Although I suppose it could be cleaned pretty well using a pipe retort.
I have an earlier version of this Ronson pipe from the 50 or 60s that i got secondhand in excellent condition and it works a treat it has become my favorite pipe! its a pain to clean and you cant get filters for it anymore, but its just as good without and far better then any falcon!
ReplyDeleteOh man this picture really hurt me..... I had a Ronson pipe exactly same as on the picture, it was left after my grand father. He bought the pipe in berlin after WWII. So besides it being an excellent pipe it was also a sort of a relic to me. And than one very sad winter day the pipe fell out of my coat pocket when getting out of the car, which I only noticed some hours later. The pipe was truly a pleasure to smoke.
ReplyDeleteI used to own one. Not as hard to clean as one might anticipate; a pipe cleaner dipped in alcohol through each of the two stem tubes, which came apart rather easily, and a 'kleenex' also dipped in alcohol to clean the underbowl chamber did the trick in a few minutes. You could also wash it with soap & water. My main gripe was the extra small bowl. I remember it did smoke cool but the taste was ...incomplete?
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