I choked!

[Brewdude]

Yesterday had the smokingpipes bi-weekly e-mail update on pipe deals. I like to see what's being offered even though I'm not in a buying mode. Call it window shopping if you will.

In the estates section under Irish pipes, there was a Peterson XL26 Kinsale for $75. This has been a shape that I've been interested in despite it's deep chamber. That style is normally like 1.83 - 1.92 deep with a .80 width. Pretty deep, and one in which I normally don't gravitate towards.

Most of my regular smokers are 1.3 - 1.5 deep at most. And that's more than enough for a good bowl, including and especially if I manage to load and sip it right.

Still as I say, I really like the style and have been beguiled by this Pete for a little while.

So when it came up on the estate section for a very reasonable price, of course I was interested. New, this goes for $125 or more and the smokingpipes rating for this estate was 4.8 out of 5. Just a little rim darkening.

Knowing full well that something like this could be snapped up, I unwisely decided to give it a bit more thought. And indeed, after an hour or so it was gone from the estate section!

Ya snooze ya loose........

OK so here's an example of the pipe I'm talking about. But the price point on this is more than I want to spend-

Cheers,

RR

 

[Anonymous]

Pretty shape, I suppose. But like you said, there are better-dimensioned pipes for actual use out there.

:face:

 

[Blackhorse]

Yeah, that one is just for virtual use...being a photo and all.


YAK...what about the Pete's dimensions makes it unsuitable for 'real' use? There are stacks galore out there that excel with a variety of blends. Two of my favorite pipes are Oom Pauls and they have approximately the same kind of geometry. I've also got a couple of relly tall apple shapes and those and the Oom Pauls do a superb job with blends ranging from Patton's Storm Front to C&D Oriental Silk...now that's a wide swath. Admittedly they wouldn't be my first pick for a hearty flake (well, I guess you could fill one half full in a pinch)...or a twist or rope (just due to me being a pansy and that much twist is more than I want to even think about! lol). Anyway...I've always loved that shape...kind of a crossover feel...rather Steampunk...Edwardian SciFi...something like that. It's the Hanson in the Return of Sherlock Holmes series...right? The ONLY think...the p-lip. Me no likee. Burn hole in roof of mouth. Smoke goes up through the hole and tickles my nose. Whatever.

 

[Anonymous]

Back when it was legal to, sluggers like Hank Sauer & Ted Kluzuski used 42-inch bats. They were one extreme end of the spectrum. On the other, guys like Ty Cobb used short bats with hardly any taper to "punch" place hits. Diff'rent strokes.

Notwithstanding the extremes, there was (and is) a middle-of-the-road length/width-taper with bats -- a dimensional zone that works best for most hitters.

Same with pipes.

Our grandfathers were not stupid people. Nor were the old-line pipe outfits who made the pipes they smoked. From an Apple up through a Billiard, there's a chamber height range. From an Apple out through a Pot, there's a chamber width range, with an intrinsic inverse relationship to height. Americans gravitated to larger pipes because they were mostly smoking Burley. Brits, with their plugs, ropes & flakes, favored smaller sizes. Group 3/4 was (and remains) the happy medium -- the "sweet spot" zone where everything works well with minimum of fussing required.

As with bats, the further you depart from the norm (which was a norm for a good reason), the more problems you run into. With stacks, cumulative moisture condensation on the way down, for one. Re-lights toward the bottom for another.

It's not that fringe-y designs don't have potential, specialised advantages so much as that they have advantages for a minority of people with the skill and experience to use them. Spending what for most of us these days is a significant amount of money on a way-cool-looking pipe that's problematic to smoke is inadvertently adopting a problem that doesn't need to be one.

:face:

 

[Blackhorse]

Bats are not pipes. So that takes care of half of your ill chosen arguement. Easy.

Well...thank goodness there's been SOME progress since perhaps Aristotle hacked a pipe out of Grecian briar to light up his Smyrna. I guess so long as the thing works with Edgeworth or MP's Holy Grail Flake, depending on which side of the pond you're on, it's OK. Oh...wait! That's what Aristotle said about his knobby little thing (smirk) and his pappy's Smyrna! It's the same thing that every generation has said down through the ages about whatever it is they're talking about. It's what great grand pappy did so it must be the right way to do it. I think it's an inherent trait of humankind to cling to what they know as the right way...something to do with change being uncomfortable...fear of the unknown...tobacco zombies...you know, the basics.

Sure, I agree that some bowls have a natural geometry that is inherently better for some types of tobacco with nimrod smokers (and to heck with all those Danish makers, they don't know anything anyway, what with all those tall odd looking designs). So which came first...the blend or the pipe in which it smokes best? Both things can and do evolve. Thank goodness for those suspect 'fringe' elements, as they often become the mainstream. Case in point - the world of tobacco blending, which has developed new conceptions and even new tobaccos with which half a dozen guys (and at least one woman) have worked their magic. And I'm thinkin' that some of those new blends are better in a stack as it allows the flavors to develope more completely. Also, many are served up pretty dry...so that horrific issue of 'cumulative moisture condensation' isn't really a problem unless you put wet weed in it and haven't bothered to develop any cake which is there to absorb said evil mosture. But nice flag waving there. Nice try.

And in summation...I'll just reorganize your summative comment a bit to make it more accurate: Spending money on a pipe is inevitable for all of us. Whether smoking it is problematic is only an 'inadvertent outcome' when it goes poorly with what is smoked in it. I suppose that's where your apples and billiards come in...they're FOOL proof. Me? Hey...I admit to having apples and billiards...(but really, those flakes do better in a Prince)...but for many of the more evolved blends I'm looking for a nice tall geometry.

 

[Dutch]

Brewdude, that is my favorite shape in the Sherlock line, and has been on my wish list for some time now. 8)

As for pipe geometry, I have some pipes in my collection I have never smoked, and probably never will. How they actually smoke is really of no consequence.

 

[Anonymous]

Whatever.

:face:

 

[thedeep]

I had one of those a few years back and it was an excellent smoker. In fact, I had two of them, I think, a Kinsale and a SH. It was a fine pipe. $75 is quite reasonable.

 

[Kyle Weiss]

There's a threshold of any design (be it bat or pipe) that can get better to a point, and anything more is just a gimmick.

So long as people are getting good smokes out of a pipe, it's worth it, to someone, at some price.

 

[Rob_In_MO]

That pipe's dimensions are no worse than a MM General (deep and narrow) and they smoke just fine, at least my General does.

 

[Blackhorse]

Oh common' YAK...just one more...Pleeeease!

 

[Brewdude]

You know what?

I'm starting to come around to the concept that deeper chambers may not be the bogyman I once thought them to be.

Case in point - I have an inexpensive Savinelli that has a chamber which is approx 1.8 deep and .80 wide. It used to be one of my favorite smokers, and it sat idle for many years up until just recently.

After a failed attempt at the recently released MacBaren Old Dark Fired in a trusted pipe, on a whim I reached for this old beater and found it the ideal companion.

Looks like I need to re-think my aversion to deep chambers after all!

Yak and BH, go argue on your own thread!

Cheers,

RR

 

[George Kaplan]

I bid on a spigot version of that pipe on Ebay about a year ago. I think I went about $75 and it sold for around $90. Been kicking myself ever since. :x