The Package

Late Thursday afternoon the doorbell rang. I wondered why the mail carrier was at the door. To my knowledge, we weren’t expecting anything. There was a package addressed to me from an old friend who I have been corresponding with for years.

This friend is a gentleman in his seventies who has, in his collection, a pipe I have tried to buy (a Comoy Blue Riband Lovat) with no success for a long, long time. Although he thought about selling it to me four years ago, he decided not to because his wife bought the pipe for him for a birthday present - a good reason we would all agree. I recently received a letter from him apprising me that he had willed the pipe to me and that I would receive it and a couple of others when he passed on.

Comoy Blue Riband Ad Panel from in-box BrochureWhen I wrote back, I told him that I really hoped his death was not necessary for me to pry the pipe out of his hands. I was trying to lighten the moment, but I worried that something was wrong because he’d also written me recently about an upcoming surgery, but with no details as to why the surgery.

I had received packages from him in the past. Among other things, he is also a pipemaker, and a pretty darn skilled one at that. I have two pipes that he’s made and they are both lovely pipes that smoke wonderfully. I wondered if there was another of his creations in the box.

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Catching Fire

My first Comoy Blue Riband – a Liverpool (434B)Despite being primarily a collector of artisanally made pipes, I have always loved the old British-made factory pipes. The first three good pipes I owned were made by Sasieni, Charatan, and Comoy.

As a student, I couldn’t afford top-of-the line pipes. Mine were modest. When I bought my first Comoy, I remember almost drooling over the one Blue Riband in the case – a straight bulldog that I believe was a #4 shape – but the Tradition prince was what I could afford, so that’s what I bought.

I never really got over jonesin’ for that first-glanced Blue Riband. I would occasionally see them being smoked by my better-heeled friends, but never bought one until five years ago.

My decision to finally buy a Blue Riband was prompted by a friend of mine bringing his sole Blue Riband – a billiard – into my pipe-smoking hangout. I thought it was a lovely thing: compact, light, elegant – the essence of the restrained British smoking pipe.

I bought my first Comoy Blue Riband from Smokingpipes.com. I had started looking for one, but as is so often the case when I start looking for something, it immediately commences its rarity phase. One afternoon, as I was reviewing the latest update, I found one in the British-estate listings.

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A blend is a blend is a blend. Not.

“I don’t really care for this.”

How many times have you thought or uttered these words after trying a new tobacco? We pipe-smokers may not be experts on much, but one thing we feel a lot of confidence about concerns those tobaccos we like versus those we don’t. When a tobacco strikes the palate as unduly bitter, harsh, or lacking flavor altogether, that sense of confidence is turbo-charged. If you’re like me, it may never have occurred to you that there may be room for doubt.

Yes, that’s what I’m writing here. You may be mistaken about what you like or dislike.

“How can that be? That’s rubbish!” you’re probably thinking. I wouldn’t blame you a bit for that reaction. After all, we do know what we like, don’t we? Stick with me here. Keep reading.

When I travel to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania on business I usually stay with my friend Scott Stultz at his Marietta home in the apartment in his studio there.

Scott Stultz lights his pipe in his studio,After dinner, Scott and I always retire upstairs to the studio for conversation and to smoke our pipes. We almost always choose to smoke the same tobacco, sometimes popping a tin of tobacco previously unknown to one or both of us.

Our ritual almost always begins with “What pipe are you smoking?” We’ll swap them, look them over, give them back, light up then commence our discussion.

Sometimes, when one or the other of us are particularly excited about the tobacco’s flavor, we’ll swap pipes to taste the tobacco in each other’s pipe after wiping the bit off. We both know that this behavior is almost unheard of, smoking somebody else’s pipe, but it has led to some otherwise inaccessible revelations.

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Reborn Pipes

As of my last researching the number, there are over 150 million blogs out there on the internet. By the time I finish typing this sentence there will probably be 160 million. It’s amazing how many people blog these days.

Steve Laug at breakfast at the Chicago Pipe ShowThere is one new pipe blog out there that deserves your attention: Reborn Pipes, written by the Vancouver, BC pipe man Steve Laug. It is better than good. It is wonderful. Truly wonderful.

I became acquainted with Steve Laug through the popular Smokers Forums, an online pipes and tobacco forum. Steve serves as a moderator on that forum. Subsequent to my online introduction, I met Steve in real time at the Chicago Pipe Show quite a few years ago. I had already intuited Steve’s kindness and generosity; these things can be experienced in an online environment, but they are amplified in real time.

In real life, Steve is a member of the clergy. He is the sort of man whose flock I would immediately join if he lived within driving distance of my home. Thoughtful, quiet, and warm, Steve is, to my mind, an old-fashioned ministerial type in that his ministry emerges from serving others. I once learned of him bringing a homeless stranger back to his home and table for Thanksgiving dinner, an event inside his life that is probably so routine as to seem unremarkable. I’m sure he will be embarrassed to read these words, assuming he ever does. In other words, he actually lives the example of Jesus Christ as opposed to preaching the example.

I bring this up because that spirit of service comes across authentically in his writing.

In his pipe life, Steve brings homeless pipes to his workbench – pipes that have seen better days. In most cases, these are unremarkable pipes in brand or collectible terms. The one thing they seem to share is that they were once loved by someone. Most of them have had the tarnation smoked out them. As we would say of this kind of horse in Wyoming where I grew up, they were “rode hard and put away wet.”

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Love at first smoke.

It takes a big briar supply to get started. These blocks were quckly all gone.I’ve been regularly smoking my Jack Howell 283 since I received it. I just love it. There is something very special about these classic shapes. Personally, I place hand-feel pretty high on my list of considerations when I buy a pipe. A pipe can be stunningly beautiful, but if I’m not comfortable with it in my teeth or in my hands, it doesn’t get smoked much.

To ensure shape continuity, a template was created.Each block is precisely cut to capture the 283 dimensions and proportions.I’ve sent individual reminders out to the Passion for Pipes membership, and I want to let all you readers know that the order deadline approaches. There are only five more days left to make your order for the Passion for Pipes Pipe of the Year. The order date cutoff is May 30th. No more orders will be accepted after that date.

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