I would love to say that I was prepared to take on whatever could be thrown my way, but that would be a drastic overstatement. You see, I’m a bit new to the business of tobacco pipes.  I’ve enjoyed a pipe for over 3 years, but that only amounts to about half of a percent of the pipe retail world. When I said I was new to the business, I didn’t mean a few months on the job or even weeks. In fact, at the time we left for Chicago I could count the number of full days worked at Smokingpipes.com on one hand. At the end of my first week, I was whisked away to the Chicagoland Pipe Show for a week of total immersion in everything pipes and tobacco. It wasn't just sales and such going on, but the meeting and befriending of some of the finest pipe makers on earth, while trying not to look like a twit. I've had little exposure to people of celebrity status in my life. Sure, I've read about noteworthy people, but almost never come face to face with them. So imagine my reaction when Adam Davidson is now a coworker, and I've just ran into Benni and Lasse, Lars and Nanna, Tokutomi, Eltang, Armentrout, Lobnik, and so many more. Luckily, the great many pipe makers I talked with were most personable. They were accepting, and willing to answer the most basic of questions, ones they’ve been asked countless times. Interestingly enough, our conversations would frequently stray from pipes and arrive at subjects like photography, music and vinyl records, or the day to day of our home lives. If a week spent with pipe makers taught me anything, it taught me that this is not an industry of competing production, but a family of very talented craftsman and artists who are proud to have common ground. 

As exciting as all of this was, there was the other side of the coin: the logistics of presenting Smokingpipes.com in the flesh. Moments before our departure, I was up to my neck in some of finest pipes I’ve seen, assisting in their safe transportation. Then was the task of creating a visual display that represents Smokingpipes in the same way you'd expect from viewing the website. No pressure, right?

When I came to Smokingpipes.com, I imagined I would use some of the skills I acquired as a Firefighter/EMT such as logistics, inventory control, and communications skills. I didn’t realize, though, that I would also make use of skills like working while sleep and food deprived, working under intense pressure, and organizing chaos. Fortunately, we had a dedicated group of people traveling, backed by some top notch folks at the home base, and a world-class shipping department, so as a team we overcame the obstacles and pulled off a great show. I enjoyed meeting those of you who came to visit us, and I'm looking forward to meeting many more pipe enthusiasts, carvers, and collectors. My door and inbox are open to those seeking answers or conversation, and my thanks go out to those who have welcomed me so warmly into this community. I'm happy to be the new Pipe Manager, I'm happy for the freedom to make this unique position my own, and I'm happy to be considered part of the Smokingpipes.com family.

Dennis Mann: Pipe Manager

As previously indicated, today we're bringing you a special promotion. It's quite simple, really: We've acquired a whole, extra-large bunch of fresh Castellos for a live event to be held tomorrow at our brick & mortar, Low Country Pipe & Cigar, and an even larger number of Castello tobacco pouches (normally retailing at $70 a pop) to be given away with each Castello pipe purchased. Why more pouches than pipes? Because we aren't limiting the deal, nor the pipes themselves, to just those of you who happen to be able to stop by in Little River, SC -- that's why. Nope. Instead we're offering the same deal to all of our customers, wherever you may happen to be, and with the purchase of any new Castello pipe at that, not just those from the forty-eight specially acquired for said event. We're even extending the timeframe of the online offer as well, which will begin today and continue through the 30th of this month, while supplies last.

 Eric Squires: Copywriter

Just a little while back, we had a visitor. You’ve probably heard of him: Canadian pipemaker Michael Parks. He’s made quite a name for himself with his great interpretations (and re-interpretations) of traditional designs, not to mention some really stellar sandblasting. And, of course, we feature his pipes in our regular updates.

He flew down here a few weekends ago to spend several days collaborating with our own resident pipemaker, Adam Davidson, and I was asked to join them in order to observe and report – the latter of which I’m doing right now. John also joined us on my second day there, and between the four of us conversations ranged across such subjects as the evolution of the “behaviorally modern human”, pipes, automobiles, pipes, flowers gardening, pipes, what to do if attacked by a bear in Canada, and of course, pipes. Michael is a proper outdoorsman, Adam was raised in a small town in Indiana, and though I grew up in New Jersey, my parents’ families hail from the outskirts of the Appalachia on one side, and deep in the hills on the other – resulting in quite a bit of common context between three thirty-something fellows who grew up hundreds of miles apart.

And of course, we all enjoyed a good meal. And because Adam is Adam, it was only natural that excellent, home-cooked fare was provided each evening. (He also took Michel out to a Cracker Barrel breakfast on Sunday morning, and, as is only fitting to a true Canadian, Michael made sure to taste and assess the maple syrup before applying it to his pancakes.)

But the real reason we were there was pipes, or more to the point, pipe-making, and regarding that there was plenty to learn of and observe. Between one day and another, John, Kat, or I had cameras at the ready to document Michael and Adam at work, and a picture is, as ever, worth a thousand words. So let’s all have a look at what went down, shall we?

Conceptualizing - Failing to plan is planning to fail, as the saying goes. While there are those out there who can just pick up a piece of briar, or stone, or a blank canvas, and create something technically proficient and aesthetically engaging on the fly, they are very much a minority – akin to those who can produce the answers to complex mathematical problems at a moment’s notice. For the rest of us mere mortals, forethought and preparation are in order. As a special project for this visit, Michael and Adam were handed a big chunk of plateau briar, with the idea of producing a pair of matched-shape pipes. Not identical, mind you; the artisans would each apply their own final tweaks, as well as their own finishing techniques, but both pipes would share in a common concept, as well source material. Even this foundational step in the pipemaking process (developing a shape) absorbed plenty of time and a lot of thought, Adam and Michael sketching, rubbing out, re-sketching, and passing the block back and forth, all while carrying on a running discussion covering flow, aesthetic balance, engineering, and grain.

Shaping – That sleek, modern Dublin seen above is Michael’s. He spoke to us about how when hand-filing he gets into a deep focus that he thoroughly enjoys, and how the time flies as he works to perfect the pipe’s design. And, sure enough, once he started, he was off in a world of his own, patiently puffing on his pipe and making no noise but the measured rasping of wood and steel, and the periodic scratching of a pen as he paused to plan out his next moves. The results speak for themselves, even when looking at an unstained stummel, sans stem, and still sporting some of Michael’s pen-marks– I really liked this pipe. The ability a pipemaker has to develop and intuitively conceive a design in three dimensions, and confidently understand how altering a line or plane in one place will affect other aspects of a shape’s balance, is, by itself, impressive.

Drilling, Engineering, and Stem-work- It’s all well and good to make a pipe look fine, but if the drilling and engineering isn’t solid, looking fine as it sits collecting dust may be all it ends up doing. Both Michael and Adam recognize this, and though they had different methods for ensuring that chamber and draft-hole were cleanly executed and precisely aligned, each clearly put a lot of thought into the process. As artisans, they don’t just want their fellow pipe aficionados to purchase and collect the briars they create, they want them to smoke them, enjoy them, and, hopefully, praise them to others. A lot of work, as well as a whole lot of patience goes into building up a reputation as an artisan whose works can be counted on as an investment – pipes that one can trust to provide enjoyment for years to come. Developing and maintaining habits and methods that produce consistent results were clearly a point of pride for both Michael and Adam. At the same time, both were more than willing to observe and learn from the other.

Adam also demonstrated his stem-making to both Michael and me. As with most things, Adam takes a systematic approach. Even with the aid of a lathe set up specifically for the task, buffing wheels, etcetera, it can take two or more hours to complete a single, custom-shaped stem. Quality of stem work is something many consider to be a major aspect of pipemaking, distinguishing the skilled artisan. Although I wasn’t there to catch Michael working on his stems, I did get to see the materials he’d brought along, including some really gorgeous cumberland. As with the briar from which bowls and shanks are fashioned, for an artisan, after investing countless hours developing your skills, making the best of your efforts begins with acquiring appropriately high-quality materials to work from.

Silverwork - Annealing is an important step, preventing the sterling silver (hardened by its extrusion into tubes) from folding or cracking during shaping into a mount. Adam was kind enough to display for Michael and me just how important this step is, by first attempting to shape a mount from silver he hadn’t annealed. Granted, this wasn’t intentional – it was a piece that he had thought he’d annealed previously - but it was instructive. As Adam good-naturedly put it, “There goes about five dollars. As you can see, making mistakes with silver can get expensive.”

R & R - Both days that I was present my arrival didn’t come until afternoon. For Michael and Adam work began around 9:00AM. This meant that by the time I’d been poking around for several hours, everyone was hungry, and both artisans could use a bit of a wind-down to refresh their grey matter and give their hands a break. (And just let me say, I’ve yet to meet a pipemaker with anything like a weak handshake.) Grilled meat, a bit of drink, and plenty of coffee and tea were provided by our host in short order – all of it excellent. Along with this came of course a bit of simply lounging around, passing about our various personal supplies of tobacco, and enjoying our pipes while the birds chirped, cats wandered through the yard, and the lathes, sanding disk, and what have you cooled off in silence.

Final Notes– Like I said, I really liked this pipe. (Also, while I’m not a terribly photogenic fellow, I do think I looked damn good in this picture, rather stately - so onto the internet with it.) Michael and I had discussed various marques the first day I was over, and one that had come up was the old Kriswells, which had given Stanwell a lot of competition back in the 1960s, offering as they did a lot of lean, trim, streamlined designs. Though Michael’s design featured a touch more substantial bowl than most of the old Kriswells I’ve seen, (which often looked like sharpened-up variations of the Sixten Ivarasson look) I saw in it the same kind of confident dynamism in line, form, and posture that I think of when I picture one of the really good, vintage Kriswell shapes. This struck me as something of a happy coincidence, given both that I’d not even seen this pipe yet when we’d had our discussion, and Michael mentioned that this design was something of a departure from the variations on classical shapes that he usually concentrates on. I think both the classic shapes and this more dynamic, direct, and active style strike as a natural fit for a man who is both an artisan and an outdoorsman, and hope to see plenty more from Michael in the future.

 Eric Squires: Copywriter

Since our 2013 poster not only accompanied the most recent issue of Pipes and Tobacco Magazine, but was also promoted on our social media, and was announced in our newsletter, hopefully most of you have seen it by now. If not, the images can be seen HERE. But this isn't about the official images. This is about the folders full of various unofficial, behind-the-scenes photos that I believe should be seen too.

The first side of the poster features a step-by-step guide to making origami pipes (disclaimer to the more impressionable: please do not try smoking these). Since it was originally Ted's idea, he oversaw the process. It seemed like the entire marketing department was folding tiny papers into letters and figures for hours, but eventually they all came together. Katie (who made many of the tiny pipes and things) was asked to take the poster photo, and if you ask me she did a great job. Although the photos of this process don't lend themselves to blooper-type humor as those from the other side of the poster did, it was still a lot of fun.

The other half of the poster went through more of a journey, and I had the pleasure of taking the photos as we worked on it. Brandon's idea evolved from old-timey boxing photos to Monty Python-like taunting, from solidly black and white, to playing with slight color and saturation.

It spawned team-building exercises like rubbing hot pipe-ash on one another because "we need to look period-correct dirty," and, in one case, actual sparring that Brandon took way too seriously. What ensued made us realize that John, normally the most laid-back and cheerful person in the marketing department, is probably not to be messed with. And of course, we learned that it's hard to make a pipe (and yourself) look good while fighting and making menacing faces.

Hopefully we'll have time to put more of the blooper shots up in a Facebook album soon, but until then, you don't need fisticuffs and mustache wax to have fun smoking your pipe. Enjoy.

Kathryn Mann: Social Media Liaison

Presenting more pipe comics to lighten up the Monday mood.

Be sure to follow our Facebook page to see the full albums of comics. 

Adam Davidson: Pipe Specialist

The day before Valentine’s Day I flew to Japan. Actually, I flew to Georgia, then to California, then to Japan, but you get the gist. The purpose of all this travel? To represent Smokingpipes.com at the Fourth Annual Pipe Fiesta in Tokyo, of course.

I was met at Haneda airport by our very own Ryota Shimizu. He whisked me away, and over the course of the next few days I met with friends, pipe makers, business folks, and customers alike. I'm pleased to report that the show, which was held Sunday, February 17, was a complete success. Just like last year, it was a blast. This year, however, the venue was bigger, the turnout of pipe smokers and collectors was better, and even more international travelers turned up to take part, like Luca Di Piazza of Neat Pipes and Sebastien Beaud of Genod (and the man behind our very own line of Sebastien Beo pipes).

Japan is awesome. The people are gracious, generous, and extraordinarily congenial. Tokyo is beautiful, wild, exotic, and captivating. It was especially cool to hang out with other pipe people who are super excited about the hobby, even if we couldn’t understand one another. That’s a magical thing right there.

Ted Swearingen: Vice President, General Manager

Currently sitting on my desk is a beautiful piece of art. It happens to be a Danish Estate crafted by Tonni Nielsen, fresh from estate restoration, and scheduled for today's update. Though I could write a thousand or more words about this Bent Brandy, its fine-looking grain and exotic wood accent, there are times where words simply fall short. That's why the images on Smokingpipes.com are so important. Although text relates information not outwardly visible and gives a little historical context for brands and pipemakers, it is the photograph that best describes -- and often sparks an infatuation with -- a pipe.

Our photography and videography team: Peter Kogler, Katie Ranalli, Chris Johnson, and John Sutherland have perfected their craft. For each update, they have less than three days to capture and edit photos and video for an average of 200 pipes. Additionally, many of these pipes get multiple photos from various angles -- all told, the gang takes well over a thousand photographs each week. Great pains are taken to ensure that what is seen on the web is exactly what sits in the tray in front of them. The light cannot just bounce off the shiny finish of a smooth pipe, it has to illuminate the intricate details of the grain. The stain needs to be just the right shade, which can be difficult for some of the colorful pipes we offer. The silver needs to be polished, and the stamping needs to be as legible as possible.

Of course, all of this effort would be pointless if we used one photo to "symbolically represent" a category of pipes like many other online retailers. For us, that is not enough. The pipe you see is the pipe you get. We do not use stock photography. We do not use bulk photography. This means, if we get 10 Peterson Darwin System Smooth (B42) with P-Lip pipes, we photograph each one with the knowledge that, although they are given the same title, each pipe is unique. Isn't that part of what makes pipes so special after all?

I could tell you that these guys work really hard, and that each photo is perfection... but why not go with the theme of this blog post and show you? It is for this purpose that we have stalked them with cameras and created a short video illustrating just that. So, without further rambling from myself, please take 2 minutes and 40 seconds to witness the endless work the guys and gal do to make the Smokingpipes.com update stand out.

Kathryn Mann: Social Media Liaison

What's new today? Well, as of about three minutes ago I received an email I'd been waiting for from Randy, our in-house website developer, letting me know Smokingpipes' new-fangled, bleeding-edge, fool-proof, free with (or without) every purchase, handy, dandy, all-natural, aphrodisiacal, and generally indispensable-to-a-gentlemanly-lifestyle search function is up and running. The long and short of it is that our new search system will allow you to apply multiple filters from a variety of categories to perfectly tailor the results to just what you're looking for. And it's just in time for holiday shopping (sheer coincidence, we assure you).

Let's say, for example, that you get an itch for a smooth Billiard with a vulcanite stem. All you need to do is pick "Billiard" from the shapes drop-down menu, "smooth" from the finishes menu, and "vulcanite" from the stem material menu, click the "Find it!" button, and, huzzah, up pops the results. Now let's say you want to pare it down a little closer: You only want a Danish or English Billiard, say. There's no need to go through everything all over again – just pick "Denmark" from the country menu, then after that, "England" (it will save each option you select), and hit "Find it!" again. You'll notice that each option you pick will instantly appear in a list just below the relevant menu, each with a little red-and-white "X" symbol you can click to remove it from your specifications. In this way you can change things up freely and without fuss.

So, try it out and have fun with it, and if you're feeling up to it, you're even welcome to have a go at getting it to bug out - Sykes and Randy have tested it as much as two men are able, but if there's a glitch hiding in there that we haven't stumbled across yet, we'd like to know about it. We're always trying to improve what we have to offer our customers here at Smokingpipes, after all - which of course was the whole idea behind this project in the first place.

 Eric Squires: Copywriter

This week saw our annual company Thanksgiving. Tradition dictates that Adam cook the turkey, but this year he upped the ante, delivering not one but two birds... and a ham. The rest of us pitched in with assorted side-dishes and desserts, while productivity ground to a screeching halt (and remained below par for the rest of the work day).

I'm particularly proud of my contribution: a cranberry-horseradish cream. This type of thing is very much out of my culinary wheelhouse, but I decided to take a gamble because it sounded interesting, and becase I love horseradish-flavored anything. The recipe:

Dump a twelve ouce bag of fresh cranberries into a saucepan, and remove about half a cup to use later. Also add a cup of sugar, a little orange or lemon zest, and two tablespoons of water. Cook over low heat until the sugar melts and the cranberries begin to soften, around ten minutes, stirring occasionally. Crank the heat up to medium, adding the remaining cranberries about half-way through, and cook until the cranberries explode, about ten minutes. Remove the pot from heat, and fold in one-third cup of sourcream and one to two (or maybe three) tablespoons of horseradish. Lick the spoon clean, and serve the cream chilled as a dipping sauce for your turkey, ham, fingers, etc.

As usual, I was running around poking my camera in folks faces:

 John Sutherland: Marketing Mngr and Sr. Photographer

1,200 cubic feet of mobile storage, two cars, a wife, a three month old, a five year old and exactly 1,086 miles… Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. Though at times it felt that way, it’s not. It’s the logistical makings of my journey to join the Smokingpipes.com team.

You see, several months ago I realized my hobby of all things tobacco pipe had turned into an obsession, and simultaneously, as the pipe gods would have it, Smokingpipes.com discovered their new found desire to hire a six foot, bearded, pipe-smoking Norseman.

So here I am, working in the promised land of pipes, handling pipes that have craftsmanship trickling out of every grain. Imagine… That pipe you’re smoking right now was once a chunk of briar, shaped and sanded into nothing short of engineering bliss, and I get to be a small part of the artisanal process that gets that pipe in your hands and loaded with your favorite tobacco. Isn’t fate sweet?

 Brandon Bellegarde: Pipe Manager

If you’ve been smoking pipes, buying pipes, collecting pipes, or even just looking at pipes over the last ten years, chances are you’re already pretty familiar with the work of American carver Michael Lindner. You may even be familiar with his story. Way back in 2000, Michael got his hands on a lathe in order to ease the restoring and selling of estate pipes through The Piperack, the online pipe retailer he’d established only three years prior. Fast forward a dozen years and Michael is a staple in the pipe world, a fixture at the Chicagoland and Richmond pipes shows, and a well-known, respected pipe maker.

I thought it would be a lot of fun to pick Michael’s brain under the pretense of sharing it with our readers. Thankfully he consented and allowed me to do so!

I think most people figure that you got into pipe making on account of having already established The Pipe Rack; pipe retailing and repairs go hand in hand. So... how did you get into the business of selling pipes? Was it just a matter of having been a collector with too many pipes?

Well, I think the opportunity just kind of presented itself to me. I already was in business for myself; I had owned a janitorial and maintenance company for a number of years and I saw an opportunity to make enough money to make my pipe collecting hobby self-sustaining. Ebay had been around for only a couple years, and I would often buy a group of pipes there, clean them up, keep one or two and then sell off the rest. I quickly realized that there was a solid business plan there if done in volume, and done correctly. At the time, honestly there weren't many "professional" websites for pipes, running it as a legitimate business. So I developed the model. Prior to The Piperack, there weren't any websites doing weekly updates, or restoring their pipes so that they showed up ready to pack and light, or taking credit cards, or giving detailed descriptions, or applying a points rating system to give people an idea of condition. There was PCCA, but they were mainly unsmoked Castellos with the occasional estate pipe collection. So it was a matter of being in the right place at the right time and taking advantage of this new selling platform (the internet) and applying a proper business framework to it.

Do you still actively collect pipes? What's your prized pipe?

How many pipes did you have to make before you were satisfied that it was something you should keep doing? At what point did you think "Yeah, this is what I'm supposed to be doing?"

Pipe making came very intuitively to me; after the first pipe I made, I decided to pursue it professionally. I mean, a week after I made my first pipe, I had stamps for the nomenclature. It may seem odd or overly confident to the casual observer, but those who know me well weren't surprised at all. I have a tendency to immerse myself in something and, being a perfectionist, really work toward honing my craft. But knowing the path and walking the path are two different things, and it did take me a little while to get my production to the point where I could say I was happy with it. I think the first pipe I sold was my 15th pipe, or something like that. But frankly looking back on these early pieces (I still have pipe 1, 3, 5, 6, 8 and a few others) I can see that I was not as polished as I would have liked. Certainly though, within six months or so I had really polished things up, and within a year I had developed the basic Lindner pipe you see today with regard to all the details (button, tenon, fit and finish, et cetera). Of course I am still learning and will be for the rest of my career but it's all about fine-tuning at this point, and occasionally exploring new techniques.

You're as seriously adept as any American carver when it comes to producing Danish influenced designs, but you seem to create plenty of classic, English inspired shapes as well. Is that a conscious effort? What kind of shaping preferences do you have as a maker?

In my opinion, the classics are really where you develop your skill as a pipe maker, because the rules for each shape are so rigid. Once you learn the shapes, you can start experimenting with them, which leads to developing your own style as well as crossover into new shape interpretations. And the lessons you learn from the classics (proportion, cut, balance, proper engineering, et cetera) are necessary in order to create art shapes.

Besides, I love the classics. I started my collection with Sasienis, and over the years have had literally thousands of Dunhills, Barlings, Ashtons, Sasienis, and so on, through my hands. Classics are what I smoke today. I have an immense appreciation and respect for what the French and English contributed to pipe design, and I try to emulate that today in the pipes I make (albeit at a much higher level with regard to engineering and fit & finish).

So, yes, it's a conscious effort on my part. There are collectors who only go after my art shapes, and there are those who only pursue my classics. By doing both styles well, I feel I can serve the needs and desires of more people. Not to mention that making a billiard versus making a blowfish use different parts of your brain; by making both classics and art shapes, I never get bored with what I'm doing and it helps me stay balanced. I wouldn't have it any other way.

What's been the most surprising aspect of being a professional pipe maker? What's made you reel back and think "this never would have happened if I were still doing something else"?

Hmm, that's really a tough question. I suppose the realization that, and this is a bit tongue-in-cheek, that I'm a "world famous artist". When I was younger, I was quite active [in] painting and drawing and wanted to someday make my living as an artist. And while I consider myself more of an artisan craftsman rather than an artist, it did kind of hit me a few years ago that things I created are in collections around the world, are cherished (I hope) by those who own them and use them, and that in a way, my childhood dream did come true. I really don't think that would have happened any other way; I wasn't that good of a painter or illustrator. It's very humbling to think about how fortunate I am to be able to do what I love and to affect so many people.

Ted Swearingen: Vice President, General Manager

Selecting a new pipe is a different process for almost everyone, but there are a few categories that most people tend to fall into at one point or another, sometimes changing from day to day.

The Impulse Buyer – We all know this feeling, especially those of you who get email updates from Smokingpipes.com. A new pipe pops up on your screen and, for no rhyme or reason, you must have it. There might not even be anything in particular that you can describe as to why you must own this piece, but deep down inside, you know that you will have it.

The Impulse purchase is not a bad thing, though those of us who suffer from Pipe Acquisition Disorder (or P.A.D.) have often felt the tug when we have promised ourselves that we will not purchase anything else. “No more!” we say defiantly, usually after clicking the Confirm Purchase button on some pipe website. Without fail, however, there will soon be some other temptation that breaks our vow of pipe-celibacy far sooner than we intended.

Those few of us who remain strong will surely fall into another category.

The Collector – This individual has limited himself to a certain scope of the pipe world, though how large a range that is varies wildly. Sometimes it is one artisan in particular, or one geographical area, or even a particular shape, or possibly a particular shape from a particular artisan, maybe even from only one year!

Regardless of what the limitation, this individual passes up the impulse purchases, at least more often than not, but cannot resist when a prime example of his specified interest finds its way to the For Sale section.

I tend to try to limit myself to the Collector area, but I am weak. My weakness means that I have many different collections going on at once. For example, I collect bamboo blowfish pipes, the Rubens Rhodesian shape from G. L. Pease, di Piazza, and Radice, and all Russian pipes. With so many areas of interest, some much larger than others, it is easy for me to justify an addition purchase to myself. 

The Novelty Aficionado – This particular pipester is interested in unusual shapes and concepts. If a shape that has never existed before suddenly spawns into existence or a well-established pipe maker tries something that he has never attempted before, this individual will be at the front of the line. Also in this group are those who assemble pipes in collections, such as Pipes of the Year, Christmas pipes, and so on.

This method of collecting is similar to purchasing first edition books. There is something appealing about owning one of the earliest models of anything: cars, comic books, pipes, etc. While a more unusual collecting method, it often yields one of the most impressive and distinctive collection.

The Hoarder – I have been asked many times when enough is enough. While some people are able to place a limit of ten or twenty pipes, I always feel inclined to answer that enough pipes is always one more than I currently own. While this can be a treacherous path in the eyes of some, I view it as healthy. Pipes make me happy, very happy, so why should I place an arbitrary limit on my collection. Is 101 pipes so much worse than 100? If not, than why would 102 be worse? (I am also curious how many of you get the picture to the right. Please post in the comments here if you actually get the reference!)

The Limited Supplies – These people are on the flip side of the hoarder. They limit themselves strictly to a certain number of pipes. I do understand the reasoning of those who place such limits, as it makes them spend a great deal more time contemplating each and every purchase and appreciating each pipe to the fullest.

This, however, is the one section where I cannot place myself. I see the pipe world as too wide-ranging, too vast, too incredible to limit myself. To those who do, however, I give my highest respect.

I am sure we all see ourselves a little in at least one of these, but that's a good thing. It means that you are enjoying the hobby. Keep enjoying it!

Ethan Brandt: Guest Blogger

Today we’re launching a couple new, quite distinctive features to Smokingpipes.com - ones that we’ve been tremendously excited about getting out the door. We’ve been mulling over the concepts that govern these new features (and a few others) since January at least, but it took bringing the very talented Randy Johnson into the fold of the SPC team before we could see our fanciful dreams rendered into actionable reality. Before Randy came along we were sort of like the guys who talk about how if they could only travel back in time a dozen centuries or so they'd invent the internal combustion engine and become rulers of the earth - except that for all our bright ideas, we did recognize that we in fact had no idea how to design and build a functioning V8 from scratch. It might seem like I'm overstating things to a degree here, but what we’re unrolling this evening is in fact very cool.

1. PRODUCT ALERT SYSTEM

No longer will you be required to keep a dogged stake-out on the site to learn when we’ve at last received either some of your favorite products, or products you’ve been eager to try out for the first time, but that high demand sees sell out in a flash. When it comes to a tin of tobacco we haven’t available in inventory, for instance, where you would have previously found an ‘add to cart button’ you’ll discover instead an ‘email me when in stock’ button. You’ll be prompted to login to the site, at which point you’ll discover that you can manage your array of notification alerts for various products. And you’ll get an email the moment the items back in stock.

Because each pipe we put on Smokingpipes.com is uniquely special, down to the last Peterson Aran (999), the notification alert system won’t work for pipes. Once we’ve sold pipe 002-555-5555, we’ll never have that particular piece back in stock again. Unless it comes back to us an estate; but that’s just a whole other deal.

We’ll also mention here that we’re retiring our Tobacco Waiting List in its present form. Because you’ll receive an instant email notification when a tin of tobacco is put back in stock with our new alert method, there’s no call for it any longer.

2. PRODUCT RATINGS AND REVIEWS

You’ve asked for it and here it is. No longer are you required to ‘take our word for it’ when it comes to product descriptions. Now when you’re signed into your SPC account you can rate an item (except pipes: see above) based on a five-star rating, and/or write a brief review on it. Yeah, that’s pretty cool.

We really want Smokingpipes.com to be not only a place where you can get awesome deals on beautiful pipes, excellent tobacco, and assorted related sundries, with quick reliable shipping and a great sales staff; we also want the site to be a place where customers can connect and share their ideas with us and one another. This is the first step in that direction.

So there you have it; two very cool new things to play with on the website. We hope you’re as stoked about it as we are, because we’re ecstatic to roll out these features today, and just so ya know, we’ve got more surprises in store for the near future.

Ted Swearingen: Vice President, General Manager

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, Adam Davidson, 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

We've been teasing you with news that the Smokingpipes crew made a trip up to scenic Morganton, NC to visit the folks over at Cornell & Diehl last week. That's not exactly what this newsletter is about, however; but you can expect a full report on the actual event soon (I promise). This story is instead about a little road trip game we invented during the long ride.

Given the all-day-and-late-into-the-night nature of the journey, the subject of distracting car games of course came up, amidst all the other topics ranging from business discussion to deep introspection. We are all pipe-people, though, and the classics "I Spy" and "Punch Buggy" simply would not do. Our game was born when Ted suggested a theme for a imaginary new line of our Low Country tinned tobaccos, which led to round after round of potential titles bouncing around Sykes's little Jetta, and eventually spilling over into our dinner at Ruby Tuesdays as well. What a hoot it was! Some of our imaginings were good, some were bad (some intentionally so), some (er, mine) were absurd, and who knows - some might one day fill your bowl.

A few suggestions to get you going: It can be helpful to pick a theme, as we did, as a guide, such as nautical or late 19th century mustache stylings of cantankerous men, especially if the road trip is on the longer side, as you'll eventually find yourself piecing together an entire line of themed-titled tobaccos.

Or, if you prefer, you can just freestyle. This tends to work best when you simply string together as many words and syllables as you can, such as Sir Stodgington's Surly Hedonist Burley Admixture or Billiam Bisquit's Moonbase Thunder-Plug.

We've yet to conjure up a point-system for this new game, or what exactly constitutes a foul, so I'll leave you to think up your own approach on that, while of course you peruse today's fresh pipes from Askwith, Tsuge, Dunhill, Luciano, Chacom, Johs, Brigham, Savinelli, and Peterson, along with a few Diamondback cigars.

 John Sutherland: Marketing Mngr and Sr. Photographer

Two weeks from Monday, I'll be headed up to St. Charles, IL for the Chicagoland International Pipe & Tobacciana Show. This will be my eleventh consecutive year of attendance. The show itself is the fifth and sixth of May, but festivities extend the full week before the show now. Joining me on Tuesday, Susan, Ted, John, Chris, Ryota and Tony will be arriving. Pre-Chicago excitement has reached a fever-pitch here at Smokingpipes.com, as we put all of the last minute pieces together to ensure that the biggest event in our calendar (indeed, in the pipe world's calendar) goes smoothly and successfully. I'm absurdly excited. I've done this for a long time and, while you would think it'd get old after awhile, it never does. I think I enjoy each year more than the last.

Susan Salinas, Smokingpipes.com's tireless show coordinator (along with a handful of other hats Susan wears in her general role of organizer of things) has been peppering me with questions, cajoling me to get things done and generally fiddling with all the details. This is good. The last time I did this, it was much more of a mess. And I have yet to remember to pack pipe cleaners for any Chicago show I've ever attended. You really don't want to trust a guy that can't remember to pack pipe cleaners for a pipe show with flights, hotel rooms, dinner reservations and scheduling for seven people at a trade show.

For John and Chris, this'll be their first Chicago. For Ryota, it'll be his first as an employee of Smokingpipes.com. With that in mind, I've created a short list of important things to know about Chicago for the uninitiated among us:

• Nothing else is quite like the Chicago show. The show is a veritable who's-who of the world's top pipe makers, dealers and collectors. You can learn more about pipes in an evening listening to a room full of semi-sober folks in Chicago than you can in a month anywhere else.
• Sleep is for sissies. Well, and for me. I've learned that I need to try to pace myself in Chicago, but I've not yet figured out how to pace myself in Chicago. If you can snatch five hours between 3am and 8am, you're ahead of the curve. Espresso is an important component in this. Don't worry, if you consume enough, the post caffeine crash doesn't happen until you get home.
• On a more concerned note, it's important to remember that pipe tobacco is not a food group. Eating is essential to continued existence. It may seem that the rules differ at the Chicago show, but man cannot live by tobacco and espresso alone.
• For us, Chicago is a ton of work and really long days. But it's also a ton of fun. So, yes, being on the Smokingpipes.com Chicago team can be grueling, but if you're not having a blast, you're definitely doing something wrong!
• Trying to get into Chicago shape by not sleeping, smoking incessantly and drinking too much scotch for the weeks before the show doesn't actually work. It may seem counterintuitive, but I suspect a regular heavy exercise regime, clean living and a sequence of nine-hour nights sleep before the show is optimal. Of course, I've never actually managed to test this hypothesis, but I do know what I do for the week before the show doesn't seem to help.

And, Chicago veterans among you, please add to my list. Chris, John and Ryota need all the pre-Chicago advice they can get. And if you've never made it to the Chicago show, go book flights now. You won't regret it!

  Sykes Wilford: Founder/President

As many of you may have already noticed, we’ve got a new, double-sided Smokingpipes.com poster circulating in the spring edition of Pipes and Tobacco Magazine. Thanks in part to popular demand, we’ll start offering the posters on the site with this coming Monday’s update.

One side features no fewer than 70 of the coolest pipes we've showcased in our twelve years in business. We’ve fashioned it a guessing-game of sorts, withholding the names of the makers from the poster instead of a cheat sheet (that can be found at www.smokingpipes.com/poster2012).

The other side of the poster boasts the Art Nouveau stylings of California based artist Jonathan Radin. Jonathan approached me last year with the completed watercolor print of a woman (à la Alfons Mucha) smoking an Adam Davidson pipe under a Smokingpipes banner, so this year when Sykes, John Sutherland (head of our Creative team), and I were discussing what the other side of our poster would look like, that we should use Jonathan’s art became clear pretty quickly.

You can see more of Jonathan’s work at RadinART.com

Ted Swearingen: Vice President, General Manager

Alright, so I utterly refuse to go shopping on Black Friday. Besides, I do almost all of my holiday shopping online. This accomplishes two things: 1) I can wear pajamas while I shop, something frowned upon by most retail stores, and 2) I won't end up having to wrestle an 80-year-old grandmother to the ground to get the last of the super discounted 54" LCD televisions. My wife has never had to bail me out of jail and I'd really like to keep it that way.

However, I happily partake in such seasonal offerings by online merchants, which conveniently keeps me from having to explain to my wife why I had the nice old crazy cat lady from down the street in a headlock at Wal-Mart at 5am and spent the subsequent hours in the North Myrtle Beach lockup.

With that in mind, we're offering our Black Friday sale starting today and running through the weekend. We've put more than 1,100 pipes on sale for the duration of the five day stretch, which makes this the biggest Smokingpipes.com sale in, I think, five years. Stupendously good deals abound. And they'll cease to abound on Monday on what hasn't been snapped up between now and then.

Given the majority of new pipe brands and selections from each country among the estates are on sale, it's kind of hard not to run into them. Still, they are all grouped here in the Specials section  for quick perusal.

On the list of things that we should have done eons ago, gift wrapping might be the most obvious and, perhaps, the most egregious, omission from our offerings. Years ago, this was because there were just a handful of guys working at Smokingpipes.com and none of us actually knew how to wrap stuff. Like most guys, we had our wives, girlfriends, mothers or sisters do it for us. Given that we now have a staff of almost thirty, about half of which is women (who, as we all know, have the right chromosomal set to be able to gift wrap things), and a shipping department that is 75% staffed with people who know how to wrap stuff (read: women; no offence to Wayne if I'm making an unfair assessment of his gift wrapping skills), this excuse has long since ceased to be justifiable.

So, for $4.99 you can have your gift wrapped in advance so you don't have to do it. Given that, when I try to wrap things, I'm more likely to tape one of our cats to the box rather than line the paper up correctly, this is definitely something I need. Actually, I'm seriously considering getting my beloved wife a pipe for Christmas this year instead of the earrings she wants simply because I can therefore have the folks in shipping here wrap it for me...

Nope, I'm not writing about these badgers, but rather about some of the new features we've rolled out in the new user center. When you log in with your email address and password, you're now presented with two things: 1) a list of your Smokingpipes.com Badges (more on this in a moment), 2) A list of your most purchased items, and 3) An address book where you can manage, edit and remove the addresses you've used with Smokingpipes.com.

We rolled out all of those massive changes that made Smokingpipes.com such a pain to use for about a week there for a good reason. Specifically, we wanted to make the Smokingpipes.com experience coolness factor more personal and, well, even more cool than it already was. We're just beginning to roll out some of the things that are planned and we have, I am sure, a ton more bits to add and integrate that we haven't even thought of yet. But, for now, there are those three.

The top items list is pretty self explanatory. We created a list of your most purchased tobaccos, cigars and accessories to make it super easy for you to get to the things that you most frequently purchase.

The badges are little markers that denote various things you've done at Smokingpipes.com. Right now, there are about fifteen of them, but we expect that to grow massively over the coming months and years. Examples include having X number of pipes from a given country in your collection, or the length of time you've been purchasing from Smokingpipes.com, or the number of different tobacco blends you've tried, whether you've bought a pipe or tobacco related book and a bunch of others. In time, we hope to integrate all of this into the website such that we can also have badges for blog comments and other sorts of site interactions too, but we're a little ways away on that. Anyway, each badge has three tiers right now (though we might add a fourth tier down the road).

In all, we just want to make Smokingpipes.com more fun to use and tailor it to your particular tastes better. We'll be doing a ton of stuff over the next few weeks especially on this front. Stay tuned!

If you have any ideas, suggestions, criticisms, please post in the comments section, or email me directly at sykes.wilford@smokingpipes.com and we'll see what we can do!

We've been working on a big project for the past couple of months that will, ultimately, radically improve the Smokingpipes.com experience (well, we hope so, at least!). Tomorrow night (Saturday October 29th) at 9pm, we're taking the website offline for a couple of hours for the upgrades. We'll be restructuring a lot of the data in the database, so we can't take orders at the same time as we roll out the new stuff.

Initially, the big changes that will be visible will have to do with how you log into the website. If you have an existing user account, we'll make your username your email address and your password won't change. If your password fails to meet security criteria, or if you've been using the website without logging in, we'll email you to set the password for the account we'll create for you with your extant order history. This is being driven by a few things:

1) Security. While we've always considered security of the utmost importance, the internet, and security threats, have changed since this part of the code was written over ten years ago. We want to get ahead of the curve and make sure we offer top notch protection for your data.

2) An improved user center experience. Right now, when you log into your user account, you have a fairly limited set of things you can do. Yeah, in this day and age, that should be way cooler. Initially, we'll give you more control over your information and order history. More importantly, the architectural changes will let us bolt on new features over time, make recommendations specific to you, offer you quick access to the items you order repeatedly and, we assume, offer up a bunch of cool stuff we haven't even thought up yet. Think pie charts of your pipe collection from smokingpipes.com broken down by country or by brand, or perhaps how much you've bought of different blends laid out for you to look at. Once we have this piece, which is sort of like the steel frame of a building, done, we'll be able to fill it with all sorts of cool stuff.

3) New, faster and easier checkout with more options. This will be available immediately. It will also fix a few problems that crop up now and again with carts dropping items and whatnot.

So, you likely won't have to do anything, but you may have to reset your password and you'll now be logging in with your email address instead of your username.

Please email us or use the comments section of this blog for any questions you might have.

We definitely hope that you like the changes!

We've been playing with some new functionality for the website to make it easier to navigate some of the larger categories. We figured that if we were getting tired of scrolling through 333 Petersons, likely you were too. Essentially, in addition to the other criteria we maintain for each pipe (or tobacco or cigar or whatever), we've started tagging them with words that are common to bunches of pipes. In the case of Peterson, this might be 'Aran' or 'P-lip'. Hopefully, this will make things easier and faster to find on the site if you know what you're after. And, of course, if you're just browsing through lists of pipes, you can still do that too.

So far, Peterson is the only category to have tags. It's a pretty huge data entry project to go through all 3,500-odd products on the site to tag them, so we'll only address those that are in particular need for now. Savinelli and Stanwell will be next among new pipes; Cornell & Diehl and McClelland will be next among tobaccos.

So, play with it and see whether you like it. Please let us know your thoughts (the comments section of this post would be great, or you can email us) and, if it does anything weird, please let us know. Thanks!

While one might think that the life of a tobacconist is one of simple problems, every great once in a while one is posed a true conundrum. Specifically, what happens when you have but a handful of tins of a new blend that you know you could sell 1,000 of in three days?

That is exactly the problem posed to us by a shipment of a truly tiny quantity of Balkan Sobranie. Yes, you read that correctly, Balkan Sobranie. Now being made by J. F. Germain (and imported by Arango), it is available once again. Or, at least, available in theory because so little has made it to the market that it is, for all intents and purposes, not available.

Determining a fair and reasonable way to distribute it as widely as possible proved elusive. Visions of hordes of angry pipe smokers descending on Little River, SC to torture and kill us in new and interesting ways proved unappealing. I've managed to go thirty-something years without hanging by the foot from a rope above a pit of hungry alligators; I'm not particularly intent on ending that track record.

We also figured that just smoking it ourselves was, while tempting, probably not the best course of action here.

We are simply going to limit purchases to one per customer until we run out. Given that we expect that to take only a few minutes.

So, without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, we’d like to invite you to purchase a tin of Balkan Sobranie. Good luck!

As you likely know our site was down for a few hours yesterday. OK, it was a few hours more than a few hours, but who is counting, really? Well, us, for one - and our loyal customers, for another.

What went wrong? If I were William Shatner (or John Lithgow, if you prefer) I would tell you that gremlins climbed into our server and wreaked havoc with the digital guts that hold the site together. If I were Fab Morvan or Rob Pilatus (of Milli Vanilli) we could blame it on the rain. But those are stupid explanations.

The real truth regarding how our website was suddenly updated with ten units of every item we’ve ever sold in the history of our company (possibly a slight exaggeration, but we will never know) is this…

‘I dunno.’

And that’s right from the mouth of our extremely talented IT guy, Tommy Ready.  Yeah, that’s right folks; we don’t know what the hell happened. All we know for certain is that it’s not our fault. Honest! Nobody but Sykes, who’s on vacation right now and out of the country, would dare to tangle up the backside of the website in such a way as it evidently tangled itself.

Our best guess is that one of the hundreds of queries that run behind the scenes of our site somehow went awry and changed the count of every item we’ve had in stock.  One of the many joys of working with complex technology is the way in which it sometimes seems to take on a personality, and intelligence all its own - at least to those of us who don't understand it. And, granted, that intelligence does tend to come off as a malevolent one... particularly to those of us who don't understand it. Fortunately, Tommy, who understands well the intricacies of technology, won't rest until every server log file has been scanned for clues as to what might have happened. Whether this results in him gently asking the system to tell him about its mother, or he gives it what Eric has referred to as ‘brisk wall-to-wall therapy’, we have full faith that Tommy will ensure that it behaves in a more socially acceptable manner in the future.

So we took the site down and set to work putting all the pieces back together again. It wasn’t fun for us and we know it wasn’t fun for you. In fact, it was kind of embarrassing.

We’re good now, though. The site’s back up and we’re monitoring our inventory very carefully. If you have any questions or concerns about an order you might have placed with us while we were down, please give us a call.

We’d like to apologize for any inconvenience that we may have caused anybody during this hiccup. And thanks for your continued patience throughout. You guys are the best.

As many of you know, last weekend we moved our entire shipping and receiving operation out of four rooms spread across two buildings into one 3,500 sq ft space a little down the hill from our other buildings. Our goal was to have absolutely zero service disruption. This required considerable planning. Everything had to be laid out and organized before a single tin of tobacco would move.

As a quick overview, our main building has three floors and about 5,500 sq. ft. We moved into this space in early 2005, with the store and shipping on the bottom floor, and offices on the top two floors. Our building is surrounded on two sides by a commercial complex with various offices and small shops. Immediately across the parking lot, a building came available and we snatched it up in mid-2009, moving our shipping department, plus customer service and a couple of other offices over there (store, some shipping area, offices, photography studio and pipe restoration workshop remained in the main building). After another two years, our new shipping space was splitting at the seams. The whole company had grown, but especially in those areas that require warehouse space: pipe tobacco and accessories. We talked to our landlord for the smaller building and asked what he had available. The first thing he showed us just wasn't going to work; it was too small and oddly located for freight pickups and dropoffs. Then he had an idea. The end/basement of his largest building contained nothing but his wife's decades worth of accumulated junk (I hope you don't read this, Miss Virginia). We couldn't even get in there past the loading door to look at it properly. I cannot properly articulate how much junk there was, nor quite how junky it was. Everything from a dozen early 1990s vintage computers to thousands of plaster molds to a kid's disney themed play car were in there. Along with displays for flooring, displays of fabric, assorted furniture (including some church pews), a half-dozen aging vacuum cleaners, and about ten ceiling fans. Really, it was what my garage would look like without my wife's intervention. But seven times the size...

It took them three weeks to empty it, but we knew we'd made the right call once we could get in there. It was the perfect space for us. And, instead of picking up 4-6,000 sq feet off-site, it was just a few hundred feet from the building, an easy two or three minute walk. We got a golf cart (which doesn't yet have the Smokingpipes.com logo spinners installed) for moving stuff back and forth. Once it was empty, we went to work. UPS Freight dropped off scarily large stacks of metal shelving, a pallet jack, roller-coveyors and assorted other warehouse goodies. Our preferred builder/handyman Billy Harrelson then went to work with his crew to do the upfit. Two weeks later (one of which was while I was in Chicago for the show), everything was in place. With rigorous use of database queries and excel, Tommy, Susan and I managed to layout the warehouse for optimal picking and packing speed, with higher volume items closer to the central packaging area. We then went to work labeling every single slot that a product (tinned or bulk tobacco or accessory) might inhabit: some 1,500 of them (pipes and cigars remain, as always, in the main building).

On Sunday (the only day of the week that shipping is closed), the entire company (save Mark, who was on vacation), some 25 people, showed up to help move everything. Much to our surprise, most of the work only took about three hours. About half of us stayed on to work out little details and kinks, but we pretty much had it knocked out by noon. By three, it was just five of us left. By four, we were done, complete with running four packages through the whole process to make sure we hadn't forgotten anything and that everything was working. Not one single package was delayed due to the move; everything worked perfectly when shipping resumed Monday morning (well, almost everything).

Bobby Altmann, our staff photographer, snapped a few photos of the work on that Sunday, whenever he wasn't busy shelving tobacco.

Susan, Pam, Ted, Tony and I are headed to the show Tuesday afternoon. We'll have our hospitality room open every night through Friday, after which we'll move everything down to the Megacenter on Saturday morning. Tokutomi will be joining us from Japan this year and he'll have some awesome pipes with him. We have great pipes from all corners of the globe with us, so come by and check 'em out (and, more importantly, say hello and chat awhile).

For those of you who know the Chicago routine, you know we'll have awesome espresso (we have a new machine this year), various and sundry adult beverages and a variety of soft drinks and water on hand in the room.

Chicago is simultaneously the most fun and most exhausting event of my year. It's totally insane. In a totally awesome sort of way. This will be the first Chicago show for both Ted and Pam. They don't quite know what they're in for, but they're appropriately excited and terrified.

I, for one, can't wait. I hope to see lots of you there. Come by the room if you're at the resort during the week and we'll get you a drink or an espresso. Or both, either in separate cups or otherwise.

(Oh, of course, that still leaves 21 people here at the offices and warehouse. Everything will run normally, (probably better) in our absence).

Not going to the Chicago Pipe Show? A little ticked off about it? Yeah, we know how you feel.

Every year a select group of our smokingpipes.com “Teammates” leave the rest of us behind for the Chicago Pipe Show.  While we are always happy to “hold down the fort” and pick up additional duties to help get through the crunch, we always find ourselves a bit miffed when everyone returns and they start telling stories of the previous week’s fun and excitement while at the show.  “…then Peter Heeschen told this story about a dog that had a penchant for JackKnife Plug … it was hysterical!” “Oh and you should have seen Rad Davis’ new pipes, they were brilliant!” “The dinner with the Florovs was the best meal we ever had!” and “The night in the hotel bar was a blast, I was so tipsy I tried smoking my new Brad Pohlmann out of my ear!”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. Go ahead, leave us behind for all the fun and excitement of the Chicago Show and then rub it in our faces.

Well, we are tired of it and we’re not going to take it anymore. So we’ve put together a killer sale sure to knock your socks off (and totally tick off Sykes and our accountant).

Check it out from the banner on the front page, the "Specials" section to your right, or just click here if your feeling especially lazy.

Wow. Just wow. Our Peterson Pipe Promotion was wildly popular this yuletide. "Buy a new Peterson pipe and you get a free tin of Peterson pipe tobacco". Sounds like a deal to me. The aim was to keep this promotion running through the end of the year; however, with the unprecedented response to such a bargain I’m sorry to announce that we just shipped out our last tin of Peterson tobacco. It’s all gone. I know because I was there to see it get boxed up and handed to a UPS driver. It was a bittersweet moment that nearly had me moved to tears.

The fate of the promotion has since been decided in a nerve-wracking bout of rock-paper-scissors between Sykes and the Bizarro Sykes that we keep hidden in the attic with the model trains.

A decision has been made. (The winner of the contest is immaterial.)

Your choices are: Waccamaw, Cooper, Santee, Black and my personal favorite Carolina Christmas.

Happy New Year All!