Comfort Level (Price Wise)

[happypipester]

If I like a pipe, and I think that its quality equals its price (and that I'm actually able to afford it lol), it's not really an issue for me.

 

[bronxbill]

I voted $100, but I have gone as high as $150 several times

 

[Jazzman]

I went with $500. Personally I think that's the most I could raise to buy a high-grade pipe, and that might take a couple months.

After reading Rick Newcombe's book "In Search of Pipe Dreams" I'm not really sure that a $500 pipe IS a high-grade. Most of the pipes that he talks about( Ivarson, S. Bang, Chonowitzch, Becker,etc. ) are priced well above $500.

The most I've paid for a pipe was $170 for a Dunhill and I couldn't be more pleased about how it looks and smokes. In the next few months I hope to purchase a high grade pipe, so now I'm looking and doing my homework on all the various makers and their grading systems, which is a whole other ball of wax. Peace-Mike :affraid:

 

[Buddy Springman]

I'm only buying pipes twice a year - I tell Mark Tinsky what pipe to "select" to send my wife to surprise :lol: me on my birthday and Christmas. They tend to be in the $350 to $500 range. I send him a downpayment of $150 or so on the sly to keep her from suffering sticker shock :shock: .

Buddy

 

[gonefishing]

I'm only buying pipes twice a year - I tell Mark Tinsky what pipe to "select" to send my wife to surprise :lol: me on my birthday and Christmas. They tend to be in the $350 to $500 range. I send him a downpayment of $150 or so on the sly to keep her from suffering sticker shock :shock: .

Buddy

This is a great idea :lol:

 

[Anonymous]

All my pipes are $100 or less now.. I've had some high dollar pipes but was mostly disillusioned and ran back to my Stanwells and Petes.

Ditto PeeBee, except for one magnificent Castello Collection that a long-time Bro bombed me with out of the blue, and substituting old blue-collar English for the Stans, with the most recent of them dating to maybe the mid-1970s, and several of the Petes from before 1949.

They mostly average over $100 each, since, although partly picked-up on eBay back when there were real bargains to be had, airway engineering & opened lucite stems from LL raise the unit cost. (A well-worth-it investment, IMHO). The others (about half of them gotten second or third hand) have accumulated since 1974.

Are old pipes that much better than newer ones ? "Better" is too slippery to deal-with. But different from isn't. GLP remembers Saturday afternoons in the back room at Drucquer's :

Al would only smoke Three Nuns in pipes made in the 1920s or before. “They knew how to make pipes, then. They just taste better.”

http://www.glpease.com/BriarAndLeaf/?p=69

Ditto Al on that. For that matter, ditto Mr. Pease himself, who has more than a few of the old-timers himself, and enjoys smoking them for the different-enough-to-notice taste of the tobaccos being smoked in them. (Full Disclosure : This Older Pipes Taste Congruence does not make me cool-by-association. But it does indicate, to my mind, that while once might be an accident, and twice a coincidence, the third time demonstrates there's a pattern. Just as when highly credible pipe guys state that their Stanwells smoke and taste every bit as well as their UberDanes do).

:face:

 

[alfredo_buscatti]

I have maybe four pipes that exceeded the 400 sticker. I almost always go for estate pipes, feeling I've doubled my money. I'd rather buy new but that would have to be in my (dreamnt of) new phase of life.

It's easy to justify an estate, not only for price but also the smokes it's been put through, seasoning the bowl. But I've never actually tasted the difference between an unseasoned, unsmoked pipe, once broken in, than, say, a 1930s BBB. Here I have to rely on the experience of my elders.

 

[Dock]

I almost always go for estate pipes, feeling I've doubled my money. I'd rather buy new but that would have to be in my (dreamnt of) new phase of life.

EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!! :cheers: :cheers: :cheers:

 

[gandalfpc]

I would spend more on a one of a kind meer of great size and detail than I would for a briar, and feel my limits are more a function of my means than my morals...

Sometimes pipes grab me like golem and precious

 

[Tim_Haggerty]

This has been a bit of a slippery slope for me and, I suspect, others. My pipes tend to sit in the comfortable medium to lower-high end stage, which I'd put between $150 - $300. Having said that, I've spent a bit more and a lot less on both new and estate pipes. Now I can appreciate a $1200 pipe -- which is not a statement I would have made a couple of years ago -- but can't afford one at this stage. Maybe when I hit the Lotto, but then I'll buy everybody here a pipe.

The "slope" as it were, it the ceaselessly ratcheting upward of what I'll spend! Given the network of online dealers, I find myself contemplating buying or bidding a little bit higher all the time; part of this is just pipe acquisition disorder, but part is also my growing knowledge and appreciation of the craft and skill that comes from a good pipe, regardless of it's price. I used to think it didn't matter much -- and I still have basket pipes that I enjoy -- but now I look at grain, fills, etc. much more closely, realizing that a quality pipe is part of the hobby. Of course that could be a bit of a justification.

 

[Hermit]

This has been a bit of a slippery slope for me and, I suspect, others. My pipes tend to sit in the comfortable medium to lower-high end stage, which I'd put between $150 - $300. Having said that, I've spent a bit more and a lot less on both new and estate pipes. Now I can appreciate a $1200 pipe -- which is not a statement I would have made a couple of years ago -- but can't afford one at this stage. Maybe when I hit the Lotto, but then I'll buy everybody here a pipe.

The "slope" as it were, it the ceaselessly ratcheting upward of what I'll spend! Given the network of online dealers, I find myself contemplating buying or bidding a little bit higher all the time; part of this is just pipe acquisition disorder, but part is also my growing knowledge and appreciation of the craft and skill that comes from a good pipe, regardless of it's price. I used to think it didn't matter much -- and I still have basket pipes that I enjoy -- but now I look at grain, fills, etc. much more closely, realizing that a quality pipe is part of the hobby. Of course that could be a bit of a justification.

Same here. If the right pipe demands to be be bought I can be nudged out of my comfort zone.
Like the last pipe I just ordered, for instance. :lol:
It was worth it.

 

[Zeno Marx]

Years ago, $500-600 for a pipe wasn't out of the question. Those pipes didn't smoke any better, or bring me anymore other form of enjoyment, than my $75 Ascortis and Caminettos. I sold off all my pipes that were worth more than $100. I only miss two or three of them, one for the great smoking and the others for their extreme uniqueness. Is there a thread in the forums about "the one(s) you'd like to have back"?

 

[Anonymous]

Living in South Africa with our exchange rate being 8 to 1 to the dollar......... New pipes are just way to expensive for me.... hell..... even estates!

 

[alfredo_buscatti]

I just bought an estate Ardor for $140.00 and love it.

I'm usually below $200.00, and I almost always buy estate/double my money.

 

[TallSmoke]

Once it hits $100 I start to ask myself how bad I want it. I try to stay below $75 if I can. Once the kids are all done with college and I actually have some spare change in my pocket I might think about going higher. My less than $100 Peterson, Stanwell, & Neerup pipes all keep me good company. I have 2-3 estates that were gifts or given to me at big discounts by friends that are worth maybe 150-200. They are all good smokers, too.

 

[*camoham]

i would have to say 100-200 level. (there was no option in the poll).

however, 3 months ago you wouldnt have caught me saying that. i saw a peterson locally and wanted it. at the same time my mind found ways to justify it.

if you only have 5 high dollar pipes, how do you rotate them

edit: the old graybows will always hold memories. heck one survived from the college days....................but the pete 314 is a whole different world!

camoham

 

[Mitch]

You get more than $75 for me, and I would probably pass. I have way too many hobbies.