News on my Blue Riband Chicago Show Exhibit and Update on Book Availability

Neill Archer Roan and Jon Guss in front of Blue Riband Exhibit, photo: Mark IrwinA week ago this morning Gary Schrier (my book’s publisher) and I spent the day at our table at the Chicago show with four big cases of books next to my Comoy Blue Riband display. I inscribed the books while Gary sold them. It was really a great experience–one of those very memorable stitches of time that I expect will stick with me forever.

Comoy Blue Riband Exhibit, photo: Mark IrwinThe preceding afternoon, Jon Guss and I presented a session on Comoy, addressing some surprising (and intriguing) results of our research for the book. We had a wonderful audience and a good time. There was food and drink and some great conversation. I felt great about the amount of interest that was shown to my collection exhibit which (immodest as it sounds) turned out to be both lovely and impressive. It is one thing to see three or four Blue Ribands; it is quite different to see 54 of them arrayed in a wide variety of shapes. To really grasp the character of a brand, there is nothing like experiencing critical mass.

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The Escape Pipe

An Escape Pipe assembledIt is a common misconception that all pipe manufacturing ceased during World War II when most pipe factories were repurposed to support the war effort. It is true that many factories were repurposed. For example, Comoys made blades that went into engines for the propulsion of aero engines. Civic made canvas items that included webbing for parachutes. But some pipe factories, for example Oppenheimer, continued to make pipes.

In fact, pipe-making was a protected industry during both World Wars I and II because soldiers smoked. Although the war effectively eliminated most makers’ ability to source briar, the Briar Pipe Trade Association allocated available briar stocks to manufacturers during the wars so that pipes could continue to be made for British forces. Some of those wartime pipes were special, indeed.

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On Comoy stems and manufacturing processes

Updated on Wednesday, February 19, 2014 at 7:31AM by Neill Archer Roan

Over the last year as I’ve worked on my book about Comoy Blue Ribands the work has necessitated a a deep dive into Comoy as a whole. Obsession is the only word that really captures the state of mind in which I found myself. Perhaps the most difficult part of the journey was in creating distinctions between opinions and what I could empirically prove to be true. I was repeatedly surprised by how my learning process repeatedly impeached longheld assumptions—assumptions held so long and with such familiarity that my comfort with them had made them indistinguishable from facts.

Whenever I have had the privilege of conversation with subject-matter experts of various disciplines, I could not help but notice a common character trait among them: humility. Research and the learning that comes about as a result of disciplined and sometimes tedious methods quickly acquaints one with undiscovered country of one’s ignorance. The more we learn, the more we become acquainted with what we don’t know. What I found most daunting, however, was that the biggest barriers I had to overcome were those things that I believed to be true that were, in fact, untrue. I found myself standing in my own line of sight.

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Preparing a Catalog for my Chicago Show Comoy Blue Riband Exhibit

Illness precluded my attending the Chicago Show last May. I was sorely disappointed at not being able to attend.

I was especially disappointed when I heard about and saw photos of George Amrom’s collection exhibit. I have repeatedly heard from people who saw the exhibit that it was truly an exhibit to remember and one of the best ever mounted at the Chicago show.

 Seeing George’s exhibit inspired me to approach Show Director Craig Cobine about exhibiting my Comoy Blue Riband collection. After many years, I finally have enough representative specimens to make such an exhibition worthwhile, especially for those pipe enthusiasts whose interest is in vintage British-made pipes.
 
So, I inquired of Craig as to whether or not there might be interest in my exhibiting. I was delighted to receive an invitation to exhibit my collection in response to my inquiry.

Because I was unable to attend the show—and I did not have the opportunity to experience the Amrom collection—it occurred to me that preparing a catalog of my exhibit would allow people who will not have attended the show to experience the exhibit, albeit in a different format.

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The Limitations of Experience

As related to pipe-smoking, few things annoy me so much as the arrogant certainty of some pipe smokers who believe, because they have smoked a pipe for some 30 to 40 years or more, that they know all there is to know on the subject.

Invariably, these people accredit their opinions by their long experience, implying that knowledge and wisdom are conveyed by virtue of having passed time with a pipe in their kisser. They trumpet, “I’ve smoked a pipe for over 40 years, and blah, blah, blah (insert opinion-of-the-day here)….”

Bullshit. Many have smoked a pipe for 1 year and repeated that single year 39 times.

Decades of jamming Prince Albert into a cob pipe will make you conversant with cobs and Prince Albert, but it certainly doesn’t substitute for active inquiry and experimentation with scores of different pipe makers and tobacco blenders over that same 40 years. By making this comparison, I am not denigrating Prince Albert or cobs, both of which are what they are, I am declaring that if that is all you have done, then you haven’t done much. This would be just as true for someone who has smoked Balkan Sobranie in an S. Bang. That experience would be just as limited.

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