A Masterful Collector

Although a pesky illness prevented me from attending this year’s Chicago pipe show, friends who did attend made it possible for me to see, in photographs, George Amrom’s astonishing collection of bamboo-shanked pipes. Although photos rarely do justice to a collection, in this case it was possible to discern that George’s is a collection the quality of which has very few rivals, and not just because of the quality of his pipes, but for the rigor and consistency with which he has applied his sensibilities and standards.

My friend, Jon Guss, told me, “I doubt I will ever see a collection like this again in my lifetime. It made my jaw drop. It was a signal experience.”

I have known George for a number of years and have often admired those pipes that I have seen him smoking when we meet at shows. Almost always George is smoking one of his Jess Chonowitsch pipes. While Chonowitsch’s pipes are always beautiful, George’s specimens have always seemed a cut above most other pieces I’ve encountered. They are always superbly cut examples of pipes where form and function merge with the singularity of a Petrarchan sonnet. It seems impossible to imagine that they could be any better than they are. But, what is really remarkable is that he has managed to assemble a collection where the standard deviation in shape quality and grain quality is so narrow, regardless of who crafted his pipes.

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A pipe for one last smoke.

“You can have one last pipe smoke.”

Now, those are dreaded words. They conjure up visions of midnight on Death Row and one long, last walk into oblivion. Or worse, my wife having grasped the last straw before separating me forever from my beloved briars.

In any case, were those words ever to scuttle like earwigs into my external auditory meatus, I have found the pipe for my final puff: the Castello Vergin Sea Rock stack depicted at the top of this post.

At five and a half inches tall, I have no idea how much tobacco capacity this pipe possesses, but I know that there is likely at least two days of non-stop puffing with the thing packed and tamped – a week if Claudio Cavicchi were smoking it (Cavicchi is a legendary slow-smoking champion).

I came upon this pipe during a recent visit to Memphis. As is my habit, I had stopped by my Memphis pipe-smoking haunt, The Tobacco Corner, to refresh my insulting and prevarication skills among its regulars. After inquiring how long I’d ago I’d been released from jail, Ken, the skipper of the old smoke-filled scow, rushed into the shop’s back room, muttering that he had something to show me.

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Guest Post: The First Phoenix

Image: Stephen Downie, © 2013, All Rights Reserved, Used with permission

The First Phoenix by Toby Ornaught and Stephen Downie

Copy and Photo-editing by Neill Archer Roan

Toby: The Pipe’s Story

The pipe which was manufactured in Italy and sold under the Stone Age brand was originally purchased in the spring of 1971 from a tobacconist, Stag Tobacco, located in a mall in Phoenix, Arizona. It was the first pipe I purchased that year, and it brought my number of pipes to three.

I was doing graduate work at the university and, to pay the bills, was also working as a clinical technician in a large teaching hospital.  There I encountered a culture of pipe smokers.  Its number included what seemed like most of the interns and residents as well as a substantial representation of the physicians who comprised the hospital’s house staff.  There were pipes galore.

I was smitten by one pipe in particular: a Dunhill poker that was possessed by one of the chief residents. I visited the Stag Tobacco Shop on a regular basis hoping to find a similar pipe, but over a year’s time, they stocked not one poker of any kind.

It was early in April that I discovered a pipe of a brand that nobody at that time – nor since – had ever heard of: Stone Age. Because of its flat bottom and its straight (although slanted) sides, I asked to see the Stone Age volcano in the glass case at the front of the store. It looked poker-ish to me.

The pipe was fairly large in size, but it was a good deal lighter in weight than I expected it to be. Its surface was smooth, but not shiny – it had kind of a matte finish. The left and front sides of the pipe were solid birdseye, and the right side had a grain that was pronounced and fairly straight. It had a rusticated rim and shank-face that was crudely machined to resemble plateau. There was a fill towards the base of its right side that splayed out more than a quarter inch. And it had a manufactured acrylic stem that met the pseudo-plateau of the shank in what resembled a truncated round, black marble.

The salesman at the store had been a mentor to me. He’d guided me to my first pipe: a Digby Prince (“Too heavy, but not too expensive in case you don’t take to the pipe.”), and my second: a small Comoy Dublin (“This is a good pipe. It’s as good as any Dunhill in the store, but it’s not going to break the bank.”) 

The salesman – my mentor – looked askance when I said that I wanted to buy the Stone Age volcano. He asked me, “Are you sure?” Then, he advised me that if I’d just be patient, eventually a real poker would become available. He added that, for about the same money, I could purchase another Comoy – not a poker-ish pipe, either.

I was not dissuaded. I wanted a poker even if it was, in fact, a volcano.

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Otherwise Occupied for Now

For those of you who are visiting looking for a new post, I’m sorry I haven’t been posting much lately. I have been otherwise occupied.

I am making a concerted push to get my book finished, and that is taking a great deal of my creative energy and time. I simply can’t be generative here on the blog and with the book.

I urge you to poke around the archives for fresh reading, if you haven’t read everything.

Taking a Pipe from Good to Great

Bamboo Pot by Jess ChonowitschThere is no little irony that a pipe’s monetary value decreases by approximately half when it is smoked because a pipe begins to deliver value to its owner when it is smoked. Some pipes are great smokers from the first light. Others require a breaking-in period to come into greatness. Regardless, when a flame kisses the tamped tobacco inside the bowl chamber  for the first time, the journey begins. Will the pipe become a beloved favorite, or will it rest, dust-laden, on a rack next to its owner’s better friends? To some extent, the answer depends on you.

As much as pipemakers concentrate their efforts on making beautiful pipes, they know that, over time, most pipe smokers become inured to a pipe’s beauty. Smoking quality, however, is a very different matter. A pipe that repeatedly delivers wonderful flavor–especially from the first light–endows its creator with favored-maker status. Pipemakers sweat that first smoke. They want it to be superb. The desire to deliver a great first smoke drives decisions ranging from where briar is sourced to how it is drilled to whether or not a bowl is coated.

Most pipemakers I know don’t want their customers to have to endure a break-in period. They want their pipes to immediately satisfy their owners. However, this doesn’t always happen, and sometimes one’s best smokers start out poorly. In my experience, even wonderful pipes improve when they are skillfully developed.

Bent Apple by Peter HedegaardAlmost every pipe – regardless of cost – requires stewardship and skill in being developed from good to great. While there is the occasional pipe that is a superb smoker from the beginning, most pipes can be improved no matter how humble their beginnings. While I’m not particularly a touchy-feely type who is inclined to make sense of the unknown with metaphysical rationales, I do believe that affection improves pipes. This is probably because beloved pipes are smoked more often, with greater care, and with more preferred tobaccos than are others. However, this is an incomplete explanation. Affection makes most things thrive, and pipes are no exception. And while love may make a good pipe better, it’s not a prescription to improve every pipe. It is nigh impossible to conjure love when it is absent.

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