Articles by Chuck Stanion | Smokingpipes Daily Reader

Stephen Fry: Adventures in Pipe Smoking

May 30, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

9 Comments

The Pipe Smoker of the Year award was conferred annually by the British Pipesmokers' Council from 1965 to 2004, when it was discontinued because of laws prohibiting the promotion or advertising of tobacco products. Stephen Fry, an actor, writer, comedian, narrator, ... Read More

Stupid Pipe Stunts

May 21, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

11 Comments

It's said that pipe smokers look smart. Something about pipes and their connection to such luminaries as Einstein, Tolkien, Hubble, and Sartre improves the image for the rest of us, though we aren't immune to occasional stupidities. Pipes themselves offer opportunities for impressive lapses in judgment. Many of us are familiar with some of the dumbest things we can do with pipes, ... Read More

The Kemble Pipe

May 16, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

15 Comments

I've always referred to my last pipe of the day as, well, my last pipe of the day, but I could have saved some syllables had I known that a final smoke has a name: the Kemble pipe, named after the martyred English Saint, John Kemble. ... Read More

Doctors and Masters of Pipes: A Timeline

May 16, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

8 Comments

Those who regularly visit the Daily Reader may have noticed occasional mention of Doctors of Pipes and Masters of Pipes, designations awarded by the Chicagoland Pipe Collectors Club. We've published profiles of several Doctors here because they are interesting people with decades ... Read More

Pipes and Cannibalism: The Donner Party

May 9, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

22 Comments

We're told in early life to avoid untested shortcuts because they often surprise us with poor results. Few historical episodes demonstrate the principle more dramatically than the tragic expedition of the Donner Party (also called the Donner-Reed Party), snowbound in the Sierra Nevada mountains to endure starvation, misery, disease, exhaustion, hypothermia, ... Read More

Franco Coppo: Castello's Driving Force Passes

April 18, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

4 Comments

Castello pipes have represented innovation and quality since their inception by Carlo Scotti in 1947. Scotti's vision was to divert from the typical Italian pipe making of the time, which concentrated on inexpensive, high-volume factory pipes. Scotti transformed Italian pipe making ... Read More

Letters to Sherlock Holmes

April 4, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

15 Comments

A book of some interest to pipe smokers is Letters to Sherlock Holmes (1985), by Richard Lancelyn Green. Most of the correspondence was addressed to 221B Baker Street, the address first mentioned in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel, A Study in Scarlett ... Read More

Anyone Can Become Filthy Rich Just By Smoking Some Pipes

April 1, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

13 Comments

On paper, I'm a wealthy man, and I owe my riches to one thing: pipe collecting.

When I started smoking pipes, I didn't realize how lucrative it could be. In fact, I was at first concerned about the expense: Nice pipes ... Read More

The Why and How of Estate Pipe Purchases

March 22, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

33 Comments

When I first learned about estate pipes, back when I didn't know a Billiard from a bathysphere, I was horrified. Used pipes? Pipes that had spent years in the mouths of who knows who smoking who knows what while fraternizing with who knows who from who knows where? Why would these pipes have any value? Sanitizing a used pipe, I deduced, must require an hour in boiling water. ... Read More

Pipe Smoking Field Marshal Gebhard von Blucher

February 28, 2025 by Chuck Stanion