A couple of more nondescript pipes

Tomorrow morning I intend to post the last Velani, and following that will go into some more interesting estate pipes that I have. I thought I'd go ahead and get these two out of the way.

This was a cheap basket pipe that I purchased at The Humidor back in the early days. It had a very heavy finish. Not just a stain. I think it was actually varnished or something. It's one of those unnamed Italian pipes, and it was easy to see why it had such a heavy finish. As most cheap pipes do, it has some quite hideous fills. This was also my first time at doing something to a pipe. I used some fine-grit sandpaper to remove the entire finish and return it to its original naked state. It helped the briar to breathe better and it does smoke better now, but it's just an ugly pipe and nothing will ever change that. I still have some very fine (2000 grit) sandpaper that I purchased for another project. I'll probably give this pipe a once-over with it to remove the wax from its last polishing and then stain it to make it more presentable.

Everyone should have at least one corncob pipe. I don't use this one often, and I have a some specific gripes about it. I don't like the way the shank extends into the bowl so that the bowl doesn't have a smooth bottom. I also don't like the cheap nylon bit they put on these, and I hate the filter pipes. The air passage is so huge that you have to use a filter or you'll suck ash. As you can see, I put a fresh filter in this one the last time I cleaned it, and that's my last filter. If I ever smoke this one again I'll have to buy more. This is the pipe I used for the Half & Half Incident. I thought about just throwing it away after that, after all it was only a cheap 'cob, but I later tried it with some real tobacco and it wasn't permanently contaminated.

Missouri Meerschaum does make some better-quality 'cobs, but unfortunately I've never seen any of the better ones at any tobacconist's around here.

A quick perusal of the Missouri Meerschaum website yields some interesting information. While the corn industry manipulated corn to produce more and more kernels with smaller and smaller cobs, the corncob pipe industry did just the opposite: engineering corn to produce larger and larger cobs suitable for smoking pipes. They also have to use vintage equipment to remove the kernels because modern equipment is designed to break apart the cobs. They own 150 acres of farmland which they use to produce corn for pipes, and they sometimes contract additional land from area farmers. The factory in Washington, Missouri operates 5 days per week, producing 5,000 pipes per day. That's a whole lotta pipes.

Two more unnamed pipes

I thought I should go back to the early days and work forward from there, so here's a twofer because neither of these pipes are especially remarkable.

Back in the early days of my pipe smoking, that is, before internet access, I had no resources to help guide me. I bought what I could find. This meant I pretty much smoked nothing but various flavors of Captain Black and Borkum Riff. I still love the smell of Captain Black Whiskey, and although I'm sure it would make a nice sachet, I would never smoke it again. Anyhow, in one of those pouches was an ad for a place called Blue Ridge Pipe Company or something like that--Blue Ridge was in there somewhere, but I don't remember the exact name. So I sent for their catalog and to me, back then, it was a treasure-trove of pipe smoking supplies and paraphernalia. Over the course of a year or two I ordered tobacco, three pipes, a beautiful rosewood-bolstered pipe tool that I have since misplaced (but it's gotta be around here somewhere), and a pipe rack from them. These two pipes are from there.

Pipe #1 above is simply a small filter pipe. Like most small pipes of this nature, there is not enough mass in the bowl and it smokes hot. The interesting thing to me about this pipe is that it was described as a "pear" shape. This isn't a shape name that I've ever run into anywhere else and is worth keeping just so I have an example of the "pear."

This little bent billiard is actually a nice pipe and has some beautiful grain for such a cheap pipe. It's one of those unnamed Italian pipes. I have kept this pipe set aside for occasionally sampling aromatic blends, however, I just don't smoke aromatics at all anymore so I think I will give this one a salt treatment to try and remove the last vestiges of vanilla and then start putting some Perique blends through it.

What is the "salt treatment?" This is something I do often with estate pipes to remove the old flavors and rejuvenate it. First remove the stem and plug up the shank with a q-tip, a small piece of cotton, or a pipe cleaner. Prop up the stummel so that it will remain upright and won't fall over. Then you fill the bowl with salt. Then you carefully pour a small amount of alcohol into the bowl, just enough that the bowl is filled without any liquid slopping out on the rim. Most people prefer to use potable types of alcohol for this. I prefer to use Everclear, which in my opinion is the best pipe cleaning fluid you can get. Any kind of high-proof alcohol that doesn't have much flavor will work. Rum is another good one. So you've got it all filled and propped up, and you let it sit. How long you let it sit is up to you, but I always let it go until the salt is brown from absorbing gunk from the old cake and all the alcohol is pretty much evaporated. It usually takes a few hours. Use your pipe pick to remove the salt, then give it a regular cleaning like you always do with pipe cleaners and pipe sweetener (or more of your favorite high-proof alcohol beverage). Put it aside and let it rest for a day or two, then load it and light it.

If this doesn't work, it can be repeated but one must be careful because the salt treatment can dry out the wood. I destroyed a cheap basket pipe like this once by giving it too many treatments and it caused a bad crack in the shank.

There is an even more drastic measure that can be taken if the salt treatment doesn't work, but I will talk about it in a later post.

The third pipe that I purchased from Blue Ridge is a much better pipe, and will get it's own post (probably) tomorrow.

Unnamed Italian bent billiard sandblast

I'll see if I can keep posting one pipe per day from my "keeper" collection until I run out. After that, we'll see how things go. This particular 'blast was the only other pipe besides the Irish Second that I purchased at a store instead of online or mail-order. It was also purchased at The Humidor, and it was on the day my son was born.

I didn't start out that morning planning to buy a pipe. But after all the excitement was more or less over, my wife suggested (rather strongly) that I get out "for a few hours and get something to eat or go to the mall or something." I guess she was tired of my hanging around the hospital room and being a nuisance. So I did get something to eat, but still had plenty of time to kill. I ended up at The Humidor poring over their cheap pipe rack for a long time. I finally decided on this $15 unmarked sandblast. The only nomenclature is the word "ITALY," much like any number of other unnamed pipes.

It had a problem that I noticed during the first couple of bowls. There was a tiny pinhole in the briar which apparently went all the way through the bowl wall. I only discovered it because I noticed a tiny droplet of moisture bubbling out during the smoke. But after a few bowls worth of cake got built up, that problem vanished and has never recurred.

Anyway, unlike the time a few years before when I had bought the Irish Second, this time they offered me a free bowl of tobacco with my new pipe. So I had them load me up with some of their Balkan Texas Style (a fairly robust latakia blend) and enjoyed my new pipe on the drive back across town to the hospital.

I generally avoid Perique blends with this pipe, since I have more or less dedicated it to latakia blends. It is the only sandblast in my collection, and is one of my most frequently-used pipes.