Cuttying to the Quick

For pipe smokers, especially among those who feel a strong connection to things nautical or historical, the cutty is a beloved shape,  perhaps because the shape’s roots are thought to emerge from the earliest of smoking pipes: clay tavern pipes that preceded briar pipes by almost two centuries. You see at the top of this post a rare Comoy Blue Riband Shape No. 347, a briar pipe with design elements that echo its tavern-pipe predecessor: forward cant, casting nipple, and egg-ish bowl shape.

Given how the pipe’s look seems so proximal to its clay pipe origins, one might assume that the Comoy’s 347 shape is the oldest of the cutty shapes the company made, but that’s not the case.

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Checking in

As is obvious, I haven’t posted on a Passion for Pipes much for a couple of months. As a result, I’ve received quite a few messages of concern from readers and friends, most of whom are worried that something is wrong beyond my being very busy with other things. So, I feel like I owe you all an update.

First, I have been extremely busy with work. Business at the Roan Group has been booming with new clients and a fairly intense work schedule with existing clients. It has been a good time, but it has also meant more than a few 12-14 hour work days.

Second, December was a big push month for the Comoy Blue Riband book which will be released at the Chicago Show this coming May. A couple of important interviews occurred late in the book’s development that occasioned a couple of rewrites, the most significant of which was a conversation with John J. Adler, the man who ran Cadogan—Comoy’s parent company. That interview provided information and insights that required rethinking and recrafting the narrative in order to present the most accurate picture.

My publisher just sent me a round of preliminary press-sheet proofs and there are a few niggling issues that must be resolved before the book goes into full production. So there is that to accomplish.

One very good piece of news is that the book will be released in hard cover. Given the amount of reference information in it, I think this will make the book far more durable over time.

I hope to be posting more in the near term. Thanks again for bearing with my absence.

Last Saturday

A portrait of me done by Scott Stultz last Saturday morning at the smoke shopSome days stick in one’s memory. They are not necessarily defined by joy, triumph, or tragedy, either. These days can be unremarkable by their appearances except that they hold a mirror up to one’s life and tell a story. They say, “This is where you are. This is who you are. And your character—all of it, good and bad—got you here. So pay attention.”

Last Saturday was one of those days in my life where events conspired to soften and to humble me. And is so often the case when these events spill from the calendar into memory, friends are at the center of the story.

I awoke early, knowing that my friend Scott Stultz would arrive at my home in the early morning. He had planned to strike out before dawn from Baltimore where he had spent the night. Although we speak on the phone often, it had been nearly six months since I’d seen Scott in person—a long time since we used to get together a couple times a month when I traveled near his home.

Scott had driven down for the day and an overnight. We had planned to meet another friend who was in town from Arizona for early coffee and subsequently join other friends for breakfast before heading to the smoke shop for our Saturday gathering.

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A New Series: The Novice's Guide on How to Buy Estate Pipes

Introduction

Over the next several weeks, I will be posting a detailed and in-depth guide to buying estate pipes. This series has been extensively researched. I’ve interviewed a range of buyers and sellers in order to develop as useful and informative guide as possible.

Over the next several years, I believe we’re going to witness a transformation of the estate pipe sales category. I would go further in that I believe that the changes are already well under way. Prices are rising. Estate sellers are scrambling to purchase inventory; there is a lot of competition among sellers because estate pipe selling is strategically supply-constrained. The seller with the best inventory flourishes. What this means is that originating sellers (collectors and smokers) are positioned to recover more money when they sell, so long as demand continues.

This transformation is embedded in a larger social trend; it is now and has been for some time a cool thing to shop in thrift stores. This is, to no small extent, due to the marketplace’s realization that many items made years ago are far better quality than what can be bought new now. As a value, thrift is fashionable. The affluent as well as the budget-conscious are shopping in discount and low-cost venues.

Of course, the buyers who will do well are those with a good eye and with savvy. It isn’t easy to successfully navigate the estate market.

The Romance of Estate Pipes

I love estate pipes. Many of my favorite smoking pipes were owned and smoked by someone else before they came into my collection. There is something special about enjoying a beautiful object that was made and used over thirty, fifty, or a hundred years ago.

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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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