Fewer than four years ago, I was introduced to the online world of pipes, and specifically to Smokingpipes.com. I spent far too much time, often during class, browsing through the seemingly endless supply of high-quality pipes that were, at that point, as unattainable to me as water to Tantalus. Imagine my elation when I realized that I would be, almost four years later, writing for the same website that started it all for me.

You’re all familiar with the writings of John Sutherland, Ted Swearingen, Eric Squires, and Sykes Wilford here at Smokingpipes.com, and with good reason. They are able to put out more content than almost any other pipe-blog out there.

Lately, though, according to Sykes, they have wanted to see the blog expand even further. “We've been looking at ways to improve the blog for some time. There have been various times when we've done a great job with it and others where we've let it languish. When we first started it, I think I wrote a blog entry almost every day, but the reality is that I a) really don't have that much to say, and b) I can't sustain that pace and meet my other obligations. I think we're doing pretty well with it these days...Still, it ends up very Smokingpipes.com-centric.”

In an effort to expand the number of voices and viewpoints that can expressed on the Smokingpipes.com blog, a new face or two will be popping in. “I picked people whose writing I like,” Sykes told me, “It's really not any more complicated than that. I've asked you and one other so far...I'd like to see the blog grow to fifty or so posts a month and build its readership.”

I think this is an admirable goal. I am a huge proponent of blogs for the pipe hobby, and I’ve been writing one of my own for the past couple of months. While books are fantastic and I own more than my fair share, I think that blogs have several distinct, necessary advantages: they can be easily updated; they invite a multitude of voices and perspectives; they allow for more community interaction; they are free and easy to access.

As one of those new faces, I suppose I should offer a brief introduction. My name is Ethan Brandt and I am, until tomorrow, a senior at Washington University in St. Louis. For almost my entire college career, I have been in love with pipes and have started writing about them within the last year, sometimes for Pipes Magazine and also on my own blog, “Pipe School”. Getting to learn more about pipes has been one of the most enjoyable experiences that I have had and I greatly look forward to continuing that here at Smokingpipes.com.

When I asked Sykes why he thought blogs were important to the pipe hobby, he, in true Socratic fashion, flipped the question back around on me: “Why is knowledge good?”

Without delving too deeply into issues of epistemology, the question is still an important one. Why pursue more knowledge about pipes beyond the fact that you like them?

To me, with greater knowledge comes greater capacity for enjoyment of pipes. This is true in many ways: with more knowledge, one is more effectively able to prepare, pack, and smoke one's pipe and tobacco, thus getting greater pleasure. This would explain why there are so many books and essays about how to pack a pipe or properly light one.

Beyond simply addressing technique, knowledge about the method behind the creation of one's pipe, the physics and the art, forces one to appreciate the intricate details that might have gone unnoticed before. Much like it is difficult to fully appreciate Caravaggio's David with the Head of Goliath without knowledge of the Baroque style and chiaroscuro. I also extract great satisfaction out of knowing more about the person, or people, who made a pipe, much like people are fascinated by the lives of their favorite writers, artists, and musicians.

Simply put, I believe that knowledge and pleasure are directly linked in the pipe hobby. It is because of that direct link that I love the idea of expanding Smokingpipes.com's blog and am excited to be a part of the adventure.

Ethan Brandt: Guest Blogger

Though British intelligence officer-turned-author John Le Carre's 1974 espionage novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was released as a full-blown Hollywood production just last year, a much more in depth, and according to many, all-in-all outright superior treatment was given to the "Cambridge Five"-inspired narrative some thirty-odd years previous. I am of course referring to the 1979 television mini-series, which allowed for not only a far longer running time, but a very un-Hollywood handling of the screenplay as well.

Make no mistake, as you might expect from a tale written by a man who actually worked in intelligence and counterintelligence, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is as far removed as can be from the wild scrapes of James Bond and his imitators.

In place of mad car chases and torrid seductions, it has Alec Guinness staring at people, and slowly, thread-by-thread, dissecting their deceptions. In place of wild shoot-out after wild shoot-out, it has a single depiction of one lone operative, exposed behind the lines, wounded, captured, and rendered completely at the enemy's mercy. And in place of a nemesis with a funny accent and a command staff made up of killer dwarves/albinos/Siamese twins, it has the enigmatic and implacable man known only as "Karla", who appears but briefly in flashback, speaks not a single word, and gives away nothing (except, perhaps, that Patrick Stewart has never not been bald.) Indeed, George Smiley doesn't even suspect it was "Karla" that he met until long after it's too late.

And while Smiley faces off against "Karla" distantly and indirectly through his struggle against the master intelligence officer's murky and deeply calculated game - the suspicion that a mole has climbed to the highest ranks of British intelligence, a more immediate and open obstacle to the investigation is dealing with the man who replaced his mentor, "Control", as the head of MI6 - one Percy Alleline; a position he gained when both "Control" and Smiley himself were forced out of the intelligence service after a catastrophically failed operation.

In fitting with British statesman Winston Churchill's famous observation of the USSR's actions as a "riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma", the task the highly trained, experienced, and perceptive, yet quiet, buttoned-down, and cautiously thorough protagonist George Smiley faces is akin to playing a game of chess, blindfolded, in which undisclosed pieces amongst one's ranks are secretly under enemy control. And all while the lumbering Alleline, promoted through a combination of his predecessor's downfall and the merits of a secret source of Soviet intelligence, holds the authority of his position close, and Smiley at a distance as the outsider he's become.

While Alec Guinness performs perfectly as the lead, the production also did good service to portraying every character of significance with, well, character - Alleline included. He's a figure who's gained his position of life-and-death responsibility through circumstances that leave questions regarding both his loyalty to the United Kingdom and her allies, and, distinct from that, whether or not he really has the skills to merit it - yet also one who externally bears no lack of traits or habits that might fool an outsider to their small and deliberately obscure professional community. Tall, baritone-voiced, naturally confident, relaxed, smartly and conservatively dressed, and, as one of Smiley's former comrades observes with a snicker, always smoking a "great log of a pipe", which he lights with an easy snap of an old-fashioned match.

 Eric Squires: Copywriter

Working for Smokingpipes.com is, for the record, as much fun as many of you have suggested you think it is, and sometimes even more so. Case in point: Friday some of us got together to experiment with stoving tobacco. The genesis for this endeavor started when Chris Johnson offered me a bowl of five-year-old Rattray's Marlin Flake, given to him by Mimmo of Romeobriar.com fame. Let me tell you, it's absolutely scrumptious! Ted Swearingen had earlier that day discussed stoving some Haddo's, hoping to bring it closer in flavor to Sykes's ten-year-old version we sampled in Chicago and so the three of us decided we should try tossing some Marlin Flake in the oven and see how it would turn out.

I walked downstairs and purchased a shiny new tin from our brick-and-mortar, Low Country Pipes and Cigars. From this tin, I removed roughly half of the tobacco for stoving, and kept the other half to smoke through the weekend so that I might thoroughly explore Marlin Flake's un-aged/un-stoved flavor for comparison. The pipe I chose to wield for this experiment was my little Peter Heeschen brandy, a piece that I have smoked no more than a handful times (being my nicest pipe, I like to save it for special occasions; we all have our rituals and rules).

The flake to be cooked, in what's commonly refered to as Fred Hannah's 220/220 method, was placed in a coffee can topped with aluminum foil. With the oven heated to 220 F, we baked the pile for just over two hours, and visually compared the three, the fresh, the stoved, and the aged-five-years. The stoved pile was much darker, closer in color to the aged tobacco. Unfortunately, the stoved flake was now also completely devoid of moisture. I placed it in plastic bag with a Hydrostone (a small, leaf-shaped piece of ceramic) and left the stoved Marlin Flake to re-hydrate over the weekend.

The result? As you might expect, the baked tobacco does not go so far as to match the five-year-old in flavor or smoothness, but it does indeed taste better. How much better than new? Well, only a little bit, honestly. I'm guessing that certain pipe tobacco mixtures respond to stoving better than others, and one could also vary cooking time, temperature, along with moistness of the tobacco, but stoving is nonetheless not chemically equivalent to aging, and therefore cannot be expected to replace it. Was it worth the time and effort? That's hard to answer, as we did have some fun playing mad-scientists in the kitchen, and I'd say that aspect at least is worth more than the end result.

Enough about tobacco, let's talk update. Today we have for you two new pieces from our own Adam Davidson, four from Lasse Skovgaard, alongside a fresh selection of Tsuges, Dunhills, Johs, Brighams, Savinellis, Petersons, and masterfully restored estates from England and Italy. Enjoy!

 John Sutherland: Marketing Mngr and Sr. Photographer

The Chicagoland International Pipe & Tobacciana Show is an orgiastic smorgasbord of some of the finest tobacco pipes ever made, past and present. Technically speaking, this year the event began on Saturday morning and ran through Sunday afternoon, and was prefaced on Friday by a short pre-show event held in the Smoking Tent just adjacent to the show room floor proper. For many, including Smokingpipes.com, the experience that is the "Chicago Show" begins quite a bit earlier than it does for most. Sykes arrived Monday prior. The rest of us, Susan Salinas (Purchasing Manager for SPC and the brains of any pipe show we ever go to, ever), John Sutherland (Marketing Manager, Senior Staff Photographer), and I, followed by Tony Santiague (Vice Chairman, VP Emeritus, and "OG" Smokingpipes team member), and Ryota Shimizu (Customer Service: Japan), arrived Tuesday and Wednesday respectively.

As usual our room was open to all; it could be found, expectedly, in room 1405 of the tower, complete with a properly thick atmosphere painted in pipe smoke of several different room notes, joined by the fragrance of neatly prepared French-pressed coffee and freshly brewed espresso. There was, of course, also a healthy dose of bourbon, Scotch, and vodka, which unsurprisingly overshadowed a much-shunned selection of canned Pabst Blue Ribbon, Diet Sunkist, Cherry Dr. Pepper, and Red Bull. And then, of course, there was the rather conspicuous presence of a few hundred gorgeous briar pipes. We were fortunate enough to have on display new works from such esteemed artisans as Smio Satou, Hiroyuki Tokutomi, Kei Gotoh, Kent Rasmussen, and Former, to name but a few. There was also Nanna Ivarsson's truly awesome, first-ever, Seven-Day Set.

By the time the weekend arrived, and the show proper with it, we were in full force. Looking back Saturday seemed like an extraordinarily busy blur, and it probably was, what with all the running around talking to numerous carvers and customers and the like. In fact, I think the general sentiment for the show as a whole was that it was quite busy for everyone involved, whether they were attending for business or pleasure, or both. And that's a good thing, methinks.

However, all good things must come to an end (or so the cliché insists), and by Sunday we were fighting exhaustion as we said our long goodbyes and annual farewells. Once again we'd like to thank the CPCC for having us, and for putting such tireless effort in maintaining the tradition of an extremely successful show. Until next year, everybody!

Ted Swearingen: Vice President, General Manager

In the decade-and-change since Smokingpipes's founding there have been a handful of truly memorable times where I've found myself looking at a particular example of a pipemaker's work which has left me so amazed at the effort and artisanship that went into it, and so humbled by the implicit responsibility to act as a representative for it on my own part, that I've been left speechless. Receiving Nanna Ivarsson's first-ever set - a seven day set at that - was one of those moments. We received the seven briars and their hardwood case two days before we were to leave for the Chicago Pipe Show, where they would be displayed and sold, so after I spent some time ogling, they were immediately whisked away to be photographed by John Sutherland just prior to being packed up for Chicago.

Fortunately, I still had plenty of time to look at them, discuss them and ponder them while at the show itself. I arrived at the resort late on Monday and Nanna didn't arrive until Thursday, so I had plenty of time with the set all to myself even before she and I had a real opportunity to discuss it in detail. While I realized it was a monumental achievement and a piece of pipe history even before I arrived with the pipes at the resort, it was really during those few days that the importance of what Nanna had accomplished really had a chance to sink in.

I think a little background from a few different angles is in order. Nanna Ivarsson has been talking about making a seven day set for almost as long as I've known her. Sitting somewhere in the back of her mind was the desire, the conceptualization incubating for years, slowly maturing before she finally began to shape the briars that would in their final form render it all a reality. Indeed, she'd told me so many times of her plans to make the set that when she mentioned to me again back in January that she would do it, I didn't by any means expect to see the whole set finished and presented in less than a year. Pipe makers, especially great pipe makers, are always ambitious and always plan a little bit beyond their present ability to execute. This is hardly unique to Nanna. I've had similar experiences (though not necessarily associated with a set) with Jess Chonowitsch, Hiroyuki Tokutomi, Kei Gotoh and Nanna's father, Lars. There's something about a brilliant, artistic mind and temperament that causes these folks to expect slightly more of themselves than is immediately possible; it's what drives the discovery of new techniques, acquisition or invention of new tools and mediums, and of course the evolution and refinement of their own skills. Whether they consider themselves artists or artisans or both, there's always that nagging thought in the back of their head that by delaying a particularly important piece by another few months, or even years, they'll be able to create something that much greater. So, as it became increasingly clear that Nanna actually was taking the plunge and making the set this time, the reality of it took a little while to properly sink in.

Nanna has a lot riding on her shoulders. As the third generation of the Ivarsson dynasty, she is inevitably held to a remarkably high standard. Perhaps this is less of an issue for her now that she's been a professional pipe maker for well over a decade, but the sort of infelicities that would not cause a second glance, that one would expect from a pipe maker in his or her twenties, were subject to extraordinary scrutiny for Nanna: she had to live up to her name; a name shared by a father and grandfather who were both considered masters. I think far too often collectors and other pipe makers point to the benefits she's derived from bearing that name without properly considering what goes with it: the additional scrutiny and pressure that other young pipe makers simply are not subject to. Frankly, I would not want to have to fill my father's shoes in the same way she has had to fill her father's (and grandfather's). Comparisons along those lines are inevitable though, and Sixten and Lars are standards against which many a pipe maker, even some of the great ones, might have withered had they found their earlier efforts judged next to them by default.

It means that anything Nanna Ivarsson produces has to be pretty much perfect. Fortunately, as one of the most talented pipe makers in the world, she consistently pulls this off. It also means that anything she does that's particularly special, a seven day set for example, must be that much more special. It has to be a pipe-making accomplishment of eclipsing importance and quality. It not only has to be representative of her very best work, it has to be a fitting culmination of three generations of the greatest pipe-making family to have lived.

The set lives up to that and more. All seven briars are among her best work. Three of them bear her Fish stamp, denoting them as pipes that are the best of the best of her work. Indeed, these three bring the total number of uses of the Fish stamp to this date to five. Given that she's been making pipes for more than fifteen years now, that's an average of one every three years. So, three of the five finest pipes she's made, out of a career output that is somewhere north of five hundred pipes, are presented here. Moreover, the other pieces are so good that I couldn't guess which of the seven the Fish pipes were without actually checking shanks. I picked one out of three correctly at my first pass. After careful inspection and discussion with Nanna, I came to understand what makes those three extra special, but the level of quality on display as a whole was so high that the difference between the Fish-grade pieces and non-Fish just wasn't that pronounced to the eye of someone who hadn't actually made the pipes himself, and who therefore didn't know every detail of every step in the process of creating each one.

And more than just a collection of great pipes, these pieces fit together in non-obvious ways. A good friend at the show observed that it was a little odd that she didn't opt to use all silver or all boxwood or all mastodon ivory for the shank treatments. I'm sort of glad she didn't, though. Each of the seven pieces is capable of standing alone and would be an extraordinary example of pipe-making even without being part of the set. But rather than having a fixed shape, she varied; rather than conspicuously tying them together with identical shank treatments, Nanna emphasized variety. And yet there's still coherence there. All together in the box, for reasons that I cannot articulate, the pipes simply seem to belong together.

The box itself is simple, clean, minimalist and beautifully executed. It's mid-century modernism at its finest, emphasizing function over form with unobtrusive elegance, and serving to emphasize its contents over itself. The interior is finished in beautiful, supple white suede, contrastingly pale and pliant, almost vulnerable, compared with the severe jet-black finished hardwood and polished stainless steel hardware that serve as a protective layer to it all. The case as a whole is beautiful in its own right, but what it does most effectively is emphasize the pipes, acting as frame and gallery alike to their art. The case's aesthetics retreat to serve as simultaneous periphery and background both, highlighting and nestling the seven briars, giving them context and presenting them to the viewer without imposing on the experience.

Nanna Ivarsson created something rarely seen in the pipe world with this set, something that is a piece of pipe history. The set should be celebrated (as it was at the Chicago show) and Nanna herself should be proud of having added a remarkable accomplishment all her own to the rarefied reputation of the Ivarsson name.

For additional photos, please visit the listing for the set.

  Sykes Wilford: Founder/President

The Chicago show has come and gone. For some it was an opportunity to buy pipes, for others it was an occasion to sell. For many it was a chance to visit with friends we don’t see but once a year. And for Smokingpipes.com it was all of the above - and then some. Fortunately, this year we were wise enough to bring along John, one of our staff photographers (among other duties), and he managed to capture dozens of beautiful pictures of pipes and people alike, many of which you may have already seen posted on our Facebook page, many more of which you’ll find on our blog in the next few days alongside an overview/synopsis/run down of our experience at the show. We’d like to thank the CPCC for putting together another simply tremendous convention, and even despite having just returned, we’re already wishing we were back there all over again. Well, okay, I think we could use a few days off first honestly, but by the end of the month I’m sure we’d be ready to throw down. Nevertheless, we’re certainly looking forward to next year’s festivities.

In the meantime it’s been business as usual at the SPC headquarters. In spite of losing a sizable portion of our total staff to Chicago last week, the gang that remained behind managed to continue to put together a couple stellar updates in our absence. And for those of you who missed seeing an estate offering this last Monday, we’ve made up the difference with a “heftier than usual” spread this afternoon.

Furthermore, we’d like to mention that we’re running a special on Lampe Berger right now; for every purchase of a new lampe we’re throwing in a free bottle of scented oil so you can get started with this beloved product that much easier, or simply add to your existing selection at home for nary a penny. Furthermore, you’ll also find new pipes from such carvers as Ardor, Ser Jacopo, Brebbia, Savinelli, Peterson, Neerup, fresh meerschaums from IMP, and beautiful new works from Tsuge, Japanese carver Smio Satou, and Austrian maker Peter Matzhold.

Ted Swearingen: Vice President, General Manager

All of Satou's pipes are finished with urushi,a specialized natural Japanese lacquer from the plant (Toxicodendron vernicifluum) of the same name in Japanese. Japanese lacquer-ware is a traditional process used on wood plates, boxes, vases, bowls and the like to create a largely water impermeable coating that nonetheless allows for gas transfer. It's enormously labor intensive. One of Satou's pipes might get six or eight coats of the lacquer, since each coat is extremely thin, and the curing time between coats can range from a day or two in the right sort of humid climate to weeks during a colder, dryer part of the year.

The finish never needs buffing, with the surface becoming more lustrous with use, developing a patina. Indeed, it should never be buffed as that can damage the finish. A dry, or at most a slightly damp, cloth is all that's required to clean it.

Most of Satou's pipes bear clear lacquer, though that process alone does color the pipe very slightly. On occasion, he's employed colored lacquers on special compositions. Such as with the combination of black urushi and gold used to finish the crane depicted to the right and below.

  Sykes Wilford: Founder/President

Great news, everyone! Due to warnings of inclement weather, Adam, who we expected to return ahead of everyone else today, has had his flight delayed - which means the writing of today's update introduction has fallen on me. Naturally this means you'll have to wait that much longer to hear how everything went at the Chicago show. (Ted, Sykes, Chris, Susan, and John were all scheduled for later flights.) "What's so great about that?", you may be wondering. The answer is... absolutely nothing, in all likelihood. All I can say in my defense is that I thought opening bad news on a positive note might soften the blow a little. (Great news, Dad! Remember how you agreed to let me borrow your fast and rare automobile last night, so that I might impress a girl with its irreplaceable styling and powerful drivetrain?, etcetera)

On the upside, however, we do have quite an update today, with one particularly special item to introduce: The first edition of Jan Andersson's Scandinavian Pipemakers. This extensive and instructive hardcover has been long in the making, and it's easy to see why once you've got your hands on it; in just over three-hundred pages, loaded with full-color photographs, Andersson covers histories and personal anecdotes alike regarding dozens of the most influential artisan pipemakers to come out of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, as well as the Stanwell and Larsen factories, who played their own important roles in what we collectively refer to as the "Danish school".

Joining this first edition of Scandinavian Pipemakers, you'll also find today close-out deals on a selection of IM Corona "Magie" series lighters, the introduction of the Savinelli "Magic Cloth", as well as fresh briars from Chris Askwith, Radice, Sebastien Beo, Tsuge, Savinelli, Peterson, and Vauen - so have a look, and be assured we'll have plenty of news from the Chicago Show when the other half of our staff finally does make it home.

 Eric Squires: Copywriter

With half our staff off at the Chicago show, all is quiet here at the Smokingpipes offices. Well, mostly quiet. Or at least moderately quieter. Pam is constantly running one place or another, getting updates together while no one else is around to handle the half a dozen other things cropping up at any given time, while I'm using Adam's absence to play plenty of the sort of music that used to make Sykes hide behind his door back when I was by his office, and which a summer intern once went so audaciously far as to describe as "not music".

On the other hand, however, I've also began sampling from the numerous Virginias lining the wall of Low Country Pipe and Tobacco, our first-floor brick-and-mortar. This is unusual, given that Virginias have always been Adam's thing, not mine. Indeed I took a rather unusual route in my introduction to pipe tobaccos, beginning with powerful Latakia blends, often supplied by Tom Marsh... and much to the dismay of Alyson and Susan, with whom I shared an office at the time.

Some may interpret that unorthodox and rather brash path as a reflection of my own personality, but it's also certainly something which was sustained by the simple fact that I have a rather insensitive palate. Eventually, desiring something that I wouldn't, shall we say, leave a negative impression upon the interior of my old Lincoln, or my small apartment, I found a few lighter aromatics I could enjoy as well, and after moving my desk into the pipe library with Adam, I've tended to smoke these more than anything. Nonetheless, with little interest in anything with a fruit flavor, I never dabbled in such blends as I did with the powerfully smoky, spicy English concoctions.

So it is that now, more than two years on, and with a sense of flavor at least slightly more attuned than where it began, I find myself beginning to poke about the Virginias, be they red, bright, ribbon, or shag. It goes to show that even those of us who can smoke all day if we please, and who have hundreds of blends available at hand, can become rather fixed in our habits. But it also shows that even those of us of a stubborn nature (as an old mule, I have on good account), and not possessed of a professional wine-taster's palate, can still (at however more slowly and finicky a pace) find and gradually come to appreciate new blends to enjoy.

And speaking of the new, as well as of enjoyment, it's time for today's update, in which you will find everything from Nording briars to a Paolo Becker morta, in a selection featuring such names as Markle, Lindner, Parks, L'Anatra, Wiley, Winslow, Cavicchi, Stanwell, and, of course, the ever-present Savinelli - plus, naturally enough, plenty of estate pipes, too.

 Eric Squires: Copywriter

Sometimes we simply need a new pipe, right? Often, that's what we tell ourselves and our loved ones, but sometimes people really do need new pipes after holding on to loved pieces for longer than they should have been enjoyed. We get a lot of estate pipes shipped to our offices every week, and I get to experience the joy of opening up every single box to see what gems are tucked away for us to, perhaps, purchase. At times, it's a bit puzzling that some folks think we’re like a junk yard, almost like we restore pipes by digging around a box of spare parts of briar to make something useable again. I can understand somebody might think we can Frankenstein some pieces together, but we don't. Often, really bad, broke-down pipes just get thrown into a box.

Occasionally it's downright comical to see what smokers have done to maximize frugality before eventually giving up on a favorite smoker. Over the years we've seen countless burnouts, broken stems, broken tenons, cracked bowls, and repair jobs that would only make Jeff Foxworthy or Larry the Cable guy proud. Instead of sending a pipe off to a reputable repair man to either have a new tenon or stem made, the shank banded (or a dozen other things), some of our dear customers tackle the project like weekend warriors trying to mark items off the "honey-do" list. We've had pipes with buttons snapped (or bitten) off that didn't make their owner want to toss it. Tooth marks all over these stems (and sometimes the shanks with no stem!), are telling signs that some smoker just didn't want to give up. We've even had - I kid you not - pipes that were taped together with Band-Aids when their tenons broke. Wood glue, Gorilla glue (which expands and foams), painter's tape, duct tape, hose clamps, and anything else that can be used to fix a pipe in a pinch have been tried and we’ve got the pipes to prove it.

The rumor goes that military mounts were first invented in the trenches of World War One when a shank broke. The soldier, the story goes, put a cartridge from a rifle over the shank and whittled down the stem to fit, but I don't believe that wire wrapped around the shank will ever catch on, even if it is silver wire. We've even seen a gourd calabash pipe that was missing its cap; its owner nevertheless filled the gourd with tobacco.

Pipes that are burned out horribly cannot be fixed, even with painter’s tape, like you see below. The photos here are simply a small sample of pipes we've had over the years that were unsuccessful repaired. Sometimes, dear reader, you really do need to get a new pipe.

Adam Davidson: Quality Control & Pipe Inspector