A DadsPipes reader and fellow Ontario piper dropped off a handful of eBay pipe purchases for me to go through before he added them to his rack and rotation. As many eBay pipe hunters have found, an estate briar listed as “cleaned and ready to smoke” may or may not actually be clean and ready to smoke. Sometimes there is also undisclosed or hidden damage … Continue reading A New Stem for a Savinelli Capri Root Briar 614
This is the second pipe sent to me by the owner of the Ardor Urano S. Holmes pipe I wrote about recently. This time I’m working on repairs to a very nice Claudio Cavicchi Bologna 04 Bent Billiard. It’s a larger pipe, the owner’s tastes tending heavily towards over-sized Italian briars. Unfortunately for the stem on this Cavicchi, the size and weight make the pipe … Continue reading Stem Repair and a Small Briar Transplant for a Claudio Cavicchi Bologna 04
This pipe was sent to me by a DadsPipes reader for a little TLC. As the pics below show, the pipe was actually in pretty good condition other than some lava on the rim and a chunk of lower button missing from the acrylic stem. The smooth underside of the shank is stamped “DR” over “Ardor” over “URANO” over “ITALY” over “S. HOLMES” over “FATTA … Continue reading Rim Cleanup and a New Button for an Ardor Urano S. Holmes Rhodesian
Every now and again I come across a pipe about which I can find no information. This Earl’s Court Prince is one such mystery. All of my searching has turned up exactly zilch, zip, zero – rather frustrating, especially as it is a well-made pipe with some years on it. This series of pcitures show the pipe as it looked when I first brought it … Continue reading Stem Repairs and a Good Cleaning for a Handsome Earl’s Court Silver Mount Prince
I started collecting Brigham pipes almost accidentally – my dad smoked Brighams, so it was natural that my first briar was also a Brigham – and the collecting began in earnest several years ago when I embarked on the Brigham Shape Chart project. Since then, I have managed to catalog over 80 vintage Brigham pipe shapes, adding about 60 of these shapes to my personal … Continue reading Adding a Brigham Shape 49 Bent Apple to the Collection
I found this Harcourt (made by Preben Holm for Dunhill in the late 1970s and early 1980s) on a recent wander through a local antique mall and couldn’t pass it up. This pipe has beautiful lines – a long, slender bowl shaped like a Tulip flower, plateaux rim and shank end and lovely vertical flame grain. The briar was in very good shape. The stem, … Continue reading Refreshing a Beautiful Harcourt B Freehand Tulip
A recent eBay purchase left me wondering about the habits and motivations of a certain subset of old pipe smokers, specifically those that seem to show no care or concern for maintaining their favourite briar companions. The eBay lot was made up of five old Brigham pipes which included both high end and entry level briars. Curiously, the 1 and 2-Dot pipes in the box … Continue reading Reclaiming a Trashed Brigham 720
