History

The History of Meerschaum Pipes

April 18, 2025 by Kayla Ivan

35 Comments

As a history lover, I actively seek out and absorb as much interesting information about the past as possible. Fortunately for me, that curiosity translates well into my current job and my interest in the pipe-smoking hobby as a whole. That endless, enthusiastic drive for wisdom is a foundational pillar for Smokingpipes ... 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

Pipe Smoking Field Marshal Gebhard von Blucher

February 28, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

4 Comments

Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, a highly decorated Prussian Field Marshal best known for leading armies in the French Revolutionary (1792-1802) and Napoleonic (1803-1815) wars, also famously smoked pipes in battle. When outmaneuvering Napoleon, however, minutes count, and he engaged a "pipe-master" whose sole job was to maintain Blücher's pipes ... Read More

Adventurer and Pipe Smoker John Fairfax

February 7, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

7 Comments

John Fairfax was the first to traverse an ocean alone by rowboat. It was the Atlantic, and two years later, in 1971, he and his partner, Sylvia Cook, were the first to row across the Pacific. The pipe-smoking adventurer had learned his navigation skills as a pirate and as captain of a vessel smuggling whisky, guns, and cigarettes across the globe. He was familiar with the sea and its creatures. When he was attacked ... Read More

Smokingpipes' 25th Anniversary Savinelli Pipes

February 7, 2025 by Sykes Wilford

8 Comments

Twenty-five years ago this year, I founded Smokingpipes. I was quite certain that I really liked pipes, the 2000 dot-com bubble was in full swing, and I thought that maybe at least some folks might actually buy pipes on the internet. ... Read More

The Legend of Hugh Glass: Pipe-Smoking Frontiersman

January 24, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

10 Comments

Geniuses like Einstein, Hubble, Jung, Tolkien, Sartre, and others have contributed to a stereotype of pipe smokers as intellectual and contemplative personalities, puffing gently, developing theories, and achieving art that changes the world. Yet pipe ... Read More

Lee Van Cleef: Beady-Eyed Villain and Pipe Smoker

January 10, 2025 by Rose Kiser

12 Comments

When I was a young girl, I had an uncle who was obsessed with spaghetti westerns. His entire man cave looked like a set from Bonanza and on the rare occasion that we visited, he would talk about whatever spaghetti western was on the tube. I don't remember a lot from these visits but I do remember one with him showing me the standoff between Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, and the unforgettable Lee Van Cleef in The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly. Lee's beady eyes ... Read More

John Milton: Pipe Smoker

December 27, 2024 by Chuck Stanion

8 Comments

If you've used the word "pandemonium," perhaps when your life has been upended by craziness or absurdity, you have John Milton to thank — not for the craziness, but for the word to describe it, which he invented. It's from his epic poem, Paradise Lost (1667), and was "the high capital of Satan and all his peers," and the dwelling place of all demons. Its meaning has shifted in modern times, but Milton conceived it. ... Read More

Gilson "Radio Rex" VanderVeer Willets

December 6, 2024 by Kayla Ivan

2 Comments

It was once said that "the power of radio is not that it speaks to millions, but that it speaks intimately and privately to each one of those millions." With many legendary figures in the field, there was one pioneer who was miles ahead of the rest: Gilson VanderVeer Willets. A man ... Read More

My Cousin Mark Twain: A Trove of Twain Pipe-Smoking Anecdotes

November 29, 2024 by Chuck Stanion