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Originating from a partnership between Louis B. Linkman and August Fisher in 1898, M. Linkman & Company was founded after the two men saved a few hundred dollars and opened a small shop along Lake Street in Chicago, Illinois. Both men had worked for a pipe distributor in the Midwest and they established a pipe shop of their own. They hired two more people and started to manufacture pipes, eventually hiring a young man named Anton Burger who came to them after also working for a pipe distributor. Under the supervision of Linkman, Fisher, and Burger, the company grew quickly, aided by their determination to craft quality pipes and offer excellent customer service.
In 1907, M. Linkman & Co. was incorporated with Linkman serving as president, Fisher as vice-president, and Burger serving as secretary and treasurer. According to an article on Pipedia.org, the "M" in the company's name is thought to have stood for Mary Linkman, Louis' mother. After years of rapid growth, the company realized they needed a larger facility, and in 1922 a three-story, reinforced concrete building was erected at the corner of Fullerton and Racine Avenues, in close proximity to DePaul University. At that time, it was one of America's largest and most modern pipe manufacturing plants.
Louis B. Linkman's leadership and sound business practices aided the company's tremendous growth and progress, in addition to the factory producing quality pipes. Linkman also kept up with pipe smokers' changing preferences, examining what they needed most and what they found to be less than desirable. He found that many pipe smokers did not enjoy the initial break-in period when smoking new pipes, causing them to hesitate and rethink purchases due to the unpleasant first few puffs they would have to endure.
It was a revelatory realization for Linkman and gave him a unique idea: Why not break in the pipe before it's purchased by a customer? They'd be more likely to buy a pipe that's already broken in and it could potentially increase sales by a significant margin. Linkman continued to think about the logistical challenges, mainly how the pipes could be "pre-smoked" at the proper pace to fulfill what he anticipated to be a large demand.
One of his numerous ideas was chemically treating the chamber to reduce the perceived unpleasant taste associated with new pipes. He doubted that pipe smokers would be receptive to such a method, concluding that no chemical or artificial process would be sufficient and that the pipes must be pre-smoked with tobacco.
In the early 1930s Linkman experimented with an automatic machine capable of "smoking" the pipes mechanically. The pipe-smoking machine consisted of long rows of tubes that would be attached to the bowls of new pipes, forcing air into the tobacco chamber to simulate the act of puffing. Though there's no specific mention of what mixture(s) were used to break in the pipes, an article by J. Harte in the June, 1946 edition of Pipe Lovers magazine mentions, "A good quality pipe tobacco is used to break in the pipes in this manner." The idea of pre-smoked pipes carried over into the Dr. Grabow brand Linkman helped establish, with a 1946 ad noting, "Every Dr. Grabow is pre-smoked at the factory with fine tobacco (Edgeworth) on Linkman's exclusive pipe smoking machine, duplicating the slow, deliberate puffing of an experienced smoker."
The article explains the systematic process: "The bowls are filled, lighted, and slowly smoked to the bottom, cleaned out, filled and relighted again. This continues for several pipe-fuls, until the pipes are thoroughly and completely broken in." The process was meant to duplicate the smoking style of a careful and experienced pipe smoker, with the machine performing puffs that were slow and even. The pipes were given time to cool between each bowlful to ensure they wouldn't crack or burn out.
Linkman's idea became popular, with newspaper publicity further attracting the curiosity of pipe smokers. The Pipe Lovers article notes, "Bob Ripley, the artist who draws the famous 'Believe It or Not' cartoons, felt the new automatic pipe smoker was worth mention in his feature and he included it in one of his sketches a short time later." Many newspapers felt the novel idea could be an appealing human interest story and several articles were published about M. Linkman & Co., creating even more favorable publicity.
While Louis B. Linkman's bold idea may seem to be from a bygone era, there are still manufacturers who offer pipes with chambers infused with various flavorings or extracts. Most notable is Savinelli, with their Lime, Miele, Vaniglia, and Liquirizia lines all featuring flavored bowls to provide a sweet-smoking break-in period. Additionally, Dr. Grabow pipes are also pre-smoked with tobacco in their own proprietary apparatus, so the idea did not pass away. Linkman's innovative idea underlines the creativity and innovation that continues to permeate pipe smoking by listening to customers and utilizing feedback to create a unique machine.
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Comments
Very strange. I've never noticed anything even slightly unpleasant about breaking in a new pipe. What's the attraction of this sort of thing? Are people just naturally lazy?
I am a Master Mariner and I am a pipesmoker for 50 years now. I enjoy reading your articles.
Great little article, and would be even better if smokingpipes would also start carrying the Dr Grabow pipes! I happened to read through all the Linkman/Grabow history on Pipedia just a few days ago while buying late 1930's/40's Grabows on ebay. I would love for SmokingPipes to be able to offer their pipes with some form of partnership with Dr Grabow. Kind Regards, Zach
I wonder how many of those ladies died of lung cancer. Can you imagine sitting in that room day after day, hour after hour?