In Praise of Authors

Author (Churchill) by Rad DavisLike many of you, I have a lot of pipes. Too many, if such a thing is possible. While I love them all, some of them exert special magnetism. When I’m contemplating relaxing with a book, paper, or magazine – and I think about smoking a pipe as I read – I will inevitably reach for a particular pipe in that moment. It is in those moments of choosing that I experience that special magnetism. I will reach for a particular pipe.

Author by Premal Chheda, Aber Herbaugh, Thomas James, and Bill ShaloskyA couple of years ago, I penned a  post called “Comfort Pipes” where I wrote about how some pipes create the same psychological effect on me that comfort food does. Whereas I understand the origins of why I feel some foods are comfort foods and some aren’t – they are often related to particularly warm and vivid memories from childhood and young adulthood – I haven’t been able to put my finger on why some pipes feel more like comfort pipes than others.

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The Nosewarmer Phenomenon

What makes nosewarmers so compelling to so many pipe collectors and smokers? Over the last three to four years, the popularity of nosewarmers has sustained, though the “brucianoso” phenomenon appears less trendy than it once was.

Stacked Belge by Chris AskwithWhat is, and is not, a nosewarmer? The most distinctive nosewarmer trait is its size. Nosewarmers are short pipes. Though there is no hard and fast length convention, most collectors agree that a nosewarmer is four and a half inches or less long. The distance from button to bowl is compressed, usually significantly. However, the abbreviated overall length of a pipe alone is insufficient to classify it as a nosewarmer. There is a difference between a small pipe and a nosewarmer.

The proportions of a nosewarmer are distorted. The diameter of the shank, the bowl diameter, and bowl capacity are similar, if not larger, than a standard size pipe. The dimensions are compressed on the longitudinal axis of the pipe. The effect of this compression results in somewhat cartoonish and caricaturistic proportions. One hears such words as “stubby, chubby, and hefty” applied to nosewarmers.

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