Pipe Culture

Words Every Pipe Smoker Should Know: Tobacco Terms

April 9, 2025 by Kayla Ivan

9 Comments

When it comes to understanding the multifaceted world that is pipe smoking, there is a whole arsenal of words that will come in handy as you peruse our website and others in this industry. We here at Smokingpipes like to help spread our knowledge. Today I am going to share some of the key tobacco terms to better understand the nuances of this hobby. ... Read More

The Why and How of Estate Pipe Purchases

March 22, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

31 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

Words Every Pipe Smoker Should Know: Pipe Terms

March 13, 2025 by Kayla Ivan

14 Comments

If you're new to pipe smoking, you've probably already noticed we have some pretty unique jargon. When we write our pipe descriptions, blog posts, and newsletters, we try to describe the pipes as accurately as possible; often that means using a specific set of terms recognized by the pipe community to mean very ... Read More

Zen and the Art of Pipe Maintenance

March 7, 2025 by Rose Kiser

9 Comments

Ritualism is part of being human, and that doesn't mean drawing arcane symbols on the floor of the basement. The definition of ritual greatly varies depending on the context of the researcher, but for our purposes we'll define a ritual as a specific act or series of acts performed in a precise manner and often repeated. That definition provides a wide range of what ... Read More

The History of Pipe Cleaners

February 21, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

6 Comments

If you've ever run out of pipe cleaners, you already appreciate their essential nature. For most of us, every smoke requires at least a couple, and we tend to maintain a good supply, especially when we've experienced the extraordinary anguish of their absence. Whether clearing a blocked ... Read More

The Pipe Community Grieves Vernon Vig

February 19, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

1 Comment

There are a lot of great pipes out there," commented Vernon Vig a few months ago. We had been chatting about his random pipe-smoking episode with Walter Cronkite in the '70s in New York City, but the conversation had drifted to the greater world of pipes, as it often did with Vernon. "A lot of great people are waiting to connect with them and each other. Pipe clubs and shows bring ... Read More

Bridging East and West: Hiroyuki Tokutomi Remembered

January 29, 2025 by Sykes Wilford

8 Comments

On Tuesday, January 28th, the great Japanese pipe maker Hiroyuki Tokutomi, 76, passed, following a weeklong hospitalization for pneumonia. He had been in poor health for much of the past 12 years, struggling with a variety of ailments. ... Read More

2025 Pipe-Smoking Resolutions

January 10, 2025 by Kayla Ivan

10 Comments

A new year calls for new goals. More time spent reading, less time on our devices, more exercise, less sugar. The list can go on and on. Here on the Daily Reader, we like to share the resolutions in pipe smoking from some of the faces behind our company. Their responses were thoughtful and might provide you with some inspiration for your own pipe-smoking resolutions in 2025. ... Read More

2024 In Review

December 31, 2024 by Sykes Wilford

25 Comments

The year 2024 has been the single most tumultuous period for the pipe-tobacco industry since the beginning of my career in the late 1990s, even more so than in 2016 when the publication of FDA's Deeming Regulations upended the regulatory environment for pipe tobacco in the U.S. ... Read More

Cozy Reading and Smoking 2024

December 12, 2024 by Kayla Ivan

12 Comments

For the discerning pipe smoker, often there are some pairings that naturally arise during the smoking experience: a spirit paired with a complex tobacco, a black coffee paired with a bold blend, and so forth. One pairing that occurs often for the pipe smoker is reading and pipe smoking. Whether intentionally pairing a book with pipe tobacco, trying something new and exciting with a new genre to read, diving into an old favorite book ... Read More