# Is anyone a Pipe smoker?



## CirdanLinweilin (Dec 26, 2017)

I just started on Christmas. I have this awesome Wizard Pipe, and this sweet Vanilla Pipe Tobacco.


I really do feel like an Inkling!


How about thee?

CL


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## Halasían (Dec 27, 2017)

Tobacco, not for many many many years. When I quit cigarettes way back in the 70's, I took up a pipe for a while, and would have a cigar now and then. The work a pipe took worked well in weaning me off nicotine. Can't say I miss it. As for pipeweed, I didn't give that up until the late 80's.


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## 1stvermont (Jan 20, 2018)

use to smoke cigarettes want to get into a pipe, miss smoking.


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## CirdanLinweilin (Jan 20, 2018)

1stvermont said:


> use to smoke cigarettes want to get into a pipe, miss smoking.



I never went to cigarettes (Thank Heavens), I went straight to a pipe. Mine is a long fantasy "Wizard-Pipe", Churchwarden style. 

It's very enjoyable and relaxing!
CL


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## 1stvermont (Jan 21, 2018)

I wish i had never smoked cigarettes either, i want to smoke organic tobacco out of the pipe. question, does yours have a built in filter? do most?

all the best people smoke a pipe, that is good enough for me. any place i should look for a good one?


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## CirdanLinweilin (Jan 21, 2018)

1stvermont said:


> I wish i had never smoked cigarettes either, i want to smoke organic tobacco out of the pipe. question, does yours have a built in filter? do most?
> 
> all the best people smoke a pipe, that is good enough for me. any place i should look for a good one?




Mine does not have a filter. I got mine off a site called MedievalCollectibles. They have gentlemanly ones and of course, more fantasy styled ones. I don't know anywhere else I'm afraid.

I don't know if most have a filter, I've just started to educate myself in the Pipe world.

I hope this helps
CL



1stvermont said:


> I wish i had never smoked cigarettes either, i want to smoke organic tobacco out of the pipe. question, does yours have a built in filter? do most?
> 
> all the best people smoke a pipe, that is good enough for me. any place i should look for a good one?



KAFPipeWorkshop on Etsy is also very brilliant!

CL


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## Yalerd (Jan 21, 2018)

No but my dad smokes a lot of pipe everyday. I do with him occasionally. It truly is an artform.


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## Rána (Jan 22, 2018)

1stvermont said:


> question, does yours have a built in filter? do most?



I don't know about most. Mine does, but it's a cheaper pipe... I would love a high quality churchwarden, but I'm not committed enough to the art. I have a "pick your poisons" approach to the world; I've cut out tobacco use to make room for other vices.

I can't comment on online retailers. If there's a tobacconist in your area, I would recommend going by to be able to see and handle some of the different styles. I've only gone by the one near me a couple of times, but the guys there are very nice. They always tell me to bring my pipe along so I can sample the blends.

I do like pipes the most for tobacco consumption. The packing, the kindling, the tending... there's a little more ritual to the occasion and I think that's a good thing.


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## Alcuin (Feb 16, 2018)

I smoked a pipe for nearly 30 years. I enjoyed it. Then I had to quit. 

My advice: If you don’t smoke, don’t start. Tobacco or marijuana, they’re both bad for your lungs, and marijuana is illegal in most places. (For the record, I smoked tobacco.) 

Cigars aren’t as rough as cigarettes. Pipes aren’t as rough as cigars. Smoking a pipe is less expensive than cigars or cigarettes, but it’s still an expensive habit. And however you smoke, you’re risking your health. 

Smoking a pipe is enjoyable. Tolkien smoked until he died at age 81. Maybe he’d have lived longer had he not smoked. I understand the cause of death was a bleeding ulcer complicated by a chest infection. Smoking tobacco aggravates ulcers. (In those days, doctors did not understand that ulcers are caused by bacterial infections, often _H. pylori_, which is also implicated in tooth decay and heart attacks.) Smoking also makes you much more susceptible to lung infections. 

If you want to live longer, don’t smoke. Pipe smoking reduces your life expectancy by more than 5 years. An extra five productive years would have given us a lot more Tolkien material to pore over.


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## CirdanLinweilin (Feb 17, 2018)

Alcuin said:


> I smoked a pipe for nearly 30 years. I enjoyed it. Then I had to quit.
> 
> My advice: If you don’t smoke, don’t start. Tobacco or marijuana, they’re both bad for your lungs, and marijuana is illegal in most places. (For the record, I smoked tobacco.)
> 
> ...




Well...that is both frightening and informative. I shall certainly keep this in mind. Thanks Alcuin.


CL


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## 1stvermont (Feb 17, 2018)

Alcuin said:


> I smoked a pipe for nearly 30 years. I enjoyed it. Then I had to quit.
> 
> My advice: If you don’t smoke, don’t start. Tobacco or marijuana, they’re both bad for your lungs, and marijuana is illegal in most places. (For the record, I smoked tobacco.)
> 
> ...




yes i smoked near 12 years cigarettes and have not smoked for 14. Still miss it. I struggle at times with slight anxiety [not healthy for you] and smoking helped that. But more than that, i loved it. When we eat modern food [ i try best not to] with processes sugar etc we are risking our lives and reducing our life span. We pick and chose what gives us enjoyment. Just like alcohol. I drink wine [because it is better for you than beer] because i enjoy it. I do so in moderation. When i start to smoke a pipe it will be in moderation, seasonal, organic [no added chemicals etc] grow and smoked from my own land.


Thanks for your thoughts having considered them, i still want the pipe.


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## Miguel (Apr 3, 2018)

I smoke this on spliffs. Best stuff in the shire!


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## CirdanLinweilin (Apr 3, 2018)

Miguel said:


> I smoke this on spliffs. Best stuff in the shire!



Because of certain security measures on my Mac, I cannot see the image. Please describe? Thanks

CL


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## Rána (Apr 4, 2018)

CirdanLinweilin said:


> Because of certain security measures on my Mac, I cannot see the image. Please describe? Thanks
> 
> CL




Because of the image, I've been unsure if you were kidding or not.
It's a dried flower from the Cannabis genus of plants.


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## CirdanLinweilin (Apr 4, 2018)

Rána said:


> Because of the image, I've been unsure if you were kidding or not.
> It's a dried flower from the Cannabis genus of plants.


No kidding here!
Ah, okay, thanks for clearing it up.
CL


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## Azrubêl (Apr 4, 2018)

Miguel said:


> I smoke this on spliffs. Best stuff in the shire!



Amazing nug. I like spliffs as well, although I don't smoke tobacco continuously for health.


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## Rána (Apr 4, 2018)

Yes, health is a common theme here, it's important to remember that inhaling fumes from the process of combustion is certainly damaging to your health... doesn't matter what you're burning. It's the responsibility of the individual to understand the substances that they're putting into their body. I'm also a believer that everyone should do something that you know is "bad" for you from time to time... Even oxygen will kill us all if it's given enough time to do its thing, I demand the right to pick a few of the poisons that affect me.

_for ages folk in the Shire smoked various herbs, some fouler, some sweeter._
(The Fellowship of the Ring - Prologue - 2 Concerning Pipe-weed)​
I think the use of "tobacco" throughout _The Hobbit_, the term "leaf" as a colloquialism, and the fact that _Nicotiana_ is mentioned in Concerning Pipe-weed all clearly indicate what substance pipe-weed is... but whatever... read it however you like. Among its many forms Art is the interpretation of the audience, right?


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## Miguel (Apr 4, 2018)

Azrubêl said:


> Amazing nug. I like spliffs as well, although I don't smoke tobacco continuously for health.



Yeah tobacco is bad but that's how i like to smoke it, mixed. If it's all weed i cough. I also use filters. I have to easy down tho, i smoked too much the other day and i started hearing Sauron's voice from the Hobbit scene where he shows up at Dol Guldur ahaha


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Apr 25, 2018)

With the usual caveat about smoking in general a given, I'll say

Yes, I smoke a pipe, and yes it was sparked by reading Tolkien. Here's what I can offer from my experience:

Most pipes don't use filters. They don't really accomplish anything but trapping moisture, which you don't want to remain in the pipe, so you have to remove them, which means taking out the stem. Do that often enough, and you wear down both stem and shank until the stem is loose in the pipe. Plus the filter interferes with getting a pipe cleaner through, which is something you need to do after every bowl, to remove the moisture.

Don't leave a pipe cleaner in the pipe. Some people do this, under the impression that it will continue to draw out moisture; all it really does is keep it trapped in the pipe. Run both ends of the pipe cleaner through the pipe, and then stand the pipe vertically; air will do the rest.

Of course, for a churchwarden, you'll need the double-length cleaners made for it: they're made by a company called Long, appropriately enough, and can be found in most pipe shops. They make the regular kind,too.

The pipe needs to rest after being smoked. A day is good; two days is better; a week is best. Refill a pipe you've just smoked, and you'll be sorry.

To that end, if you want to smoke more often than every other day, you need more than one pipe. The visit to the tobacconist suggested above is a good idea -- or was, until yuppies and following generations discovered that cigars made an excellent field for conspicuous consumption. Most "pipe shops" used to carry a wide range of pipes, both expensive and inexpensive, all the way down to the "bowl of pipes" that went for ten dollars or less. That kind of place is getting harder to find, but if you get lucky, ask about "seconds". These are pipes that didn't make it to the "name" category for some reason, often due to pits discovered in the carving process. The pits get filled, which prevents them being "firsts", but usually doesn't affect their smoking quality.

I'll try to get back to this later -- right now it's time for pizza!


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## Alcuin (Apr 25, 2018)

Most pipes are made of wood from the root of the Mediterranean briar. The wood should be extremely light: as a rule of thumb, the less dense the wood, the better the pipe will smoke. White pipes are made from a light clay called meerschaum. Both briar and meerschaum come from the Mediterranean (or Black Sea) region, although there are also deposits of meerschaum in the United States. 

Good meerschaum floats, but floating your meerschaum pipe will ruin it. And if you wash your briar pipe to clean it, you’ll ruin it, too. (My wife’s grandmother washed her grandfather’s pipes, thinking she was doing him a favor: ruined them all.) Meerschaum starts out white, but slowly discolors with time, giving older meerschaum pipes a distinctive brown coloring. Many people love them, but I preferred briar root. 

Besides pipe cleaners, you’ll need a smoker’s knife to clean the thing. Some pipe stems are made with a trap to stop the tarry condensate from the tobacco from quickly creeping up the stem into the bit: the wooden inside of the stem looks as if it has two bores into the bowl, but the lower one is the trap; Peterson pipes are known for this. 



Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> Most "pipe shops" used to carry a wide range of pipes, both expensive and inexpensive, all the way down to the "bowl of pipes" that went for ten dollars or less. That kind of place is getting harder to find, but if you get lucky, ask about "seconds". These are pipes that didn't make it to the "name" category some reason, often due to pits discovered in the carving process. The pits get filled, which prevents them being "firsts", but usually doesn't affect their smoking quality.


*Squint-eyed Southerner* is on the nose about this. Pipes can be _really_ expensive. I’ve had expensive pipes and seconds pipes, and as a rule, the seconds reliably smoke just as well as the more expensive ones; besides, you don’t feel bad if they get lost or broken or stolen. (All those things happened to me.) The other things he points out are also correct: 
Filters don’t work. You’re smoking tobacco anyway: you’ve already assumed that risk. Enjoy the tobacco.
Don’t leave pipe cleaners in the pipe.
Buy cleaners by hundreds. You’ll need to use one every time you charge the pipe, or at least once a day for each pipe you smoke.
They make cleaners with wire bristles. Get some of those: eventually, the stem will begin to build carbon.
Be prepared for your kids, nieces, nephews, and artsy friends to take them and bend them into every crazy shape imaginable, so hide some spares where they won’t find them and use every last one.

You’ll need several pipes. You’ll soon have a favorite, but a pipe has to “rest” for several days – I’d suggest at least three or four days – between uses. (That’s another good reason to buy seconds.)
Look around for tobaccos you like. Most pipe tobacco uses a Virginia tobacco base; most cigarettes use a burley tobacco base. Latakia is really nice, but too strong for me by itself. Preferences abound, but I don’t like Cavendish, except in blends; smoke straight Perique and you’re risking getting ill for about 36 hours: like Cavendish, only in blends. Good pipe stores generally have several “house blends”, often from a commercial tobacco blender, and will sell you smaller sample portions or sometimes even let you fill a bowl on the house, particularly if you are a regular customer. I bought my preferred blend from a tobacconist who mixed his own in Boston, but in lieu of that, there are some excellent tobaccos sold in tins, which keeps better than loose in bags. You can refrigerate and even freeze tobacco. You will eventually need to consider the moisture content: as tobacco dries, it becomes harsher and loses its flavor. For this you can purchase a humidor, but any wooden box with a small jar with a perforated top (a hole or two punched in it; not “lots” of holes, as if you were keeping a live critter) will do, with a damp sponge in the jar to maintain humidity. 

You will need a smoker’s knife, a flat, _rounded-end_, folding knife. Decent smoker’s knives usually have a _tamp_ on one end, a small flat surface to press the tobacco down into the pipe bowl (so you don’t burn your finger). Most of them also have a straight piece of metal that folds next to the knife-blade for clearing the pipe stem. Decent ones are not terribly expensive, but _*don’t forget to take them out of your pocket before going through airport security!*_ I can’t tell how many I lost after 9/11 to overly cautious airport cops. Some cops won’t let you into a courthouse or government building with them, either, and while most of them are decent enough, some of them can be real jerks about it, as if you were going to stick up the whole courthouse with a friggin’ smoker’s knife. And if you do wander into the airport security line with it, be sure to call it a *“smoker’s TOOL”*, _not_ a “knife”, point out that it has a rounded end, and maybe you’ll get lucky and the airport security guard will also be a pipe smoker and have mercy on you. (That’s happened, too.  ) By the way, _the rounded end means you always have a great, handy screwdriver in your pocket: smoker’s knives are useful even if you never smoke!_ 

Finally, you will eventually require a pipe reamer. The bowl of the pipe soon builds a thick layer of carbon, partly from the burned wood, mostly from the remains of the burned tobacco. The bowl will narrow over time. The way to get that out is with a reamer. You’ll either need to buy an adjustable reamer or several single reamers from wide to narrow. I’ve used both, but generally preferred a good adjustable (which I inherited from my wife’s grandfather: he bought more pipes after his wife washed his first set). *Don’t remove all the carbon.* The carbon layer actually improves the flavor of the pipe, making it milder; it and the fresh tobacco you tamp into it also stain your fingers: you can always tell who smokes a pipe by his fingertips. 

Smoking a pipe is still cheaper than cigarettes or decent cigars, but are you sure you want to do this? It’s really easy to start, it’s very pleasurable, but it’s very, very difficult to stop. It costs a lot of money you could use in other ways, and if you get sick from it, boy, that’s a real mess.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Apr 25, 2018)

OK, back from pizza (and Pinot Noir-- but I'll try to stay coherent).

Alcuin has already mentioned some things I was going to add. You might consider getting a corn cob pipe or two; they're cheap, you don't have to break them in, and, though they eventually burn out, you can just toss them when that happens, or when they get fouled with goo.

Which is probably going to happen. Alcuin talked about tobacco, which I was going to bring up. You mention a vanilla-flavored blend; would I be right in guessing it's black, or mostly so? It's called a Toasted Cavendish -- Captain Black is probably the most popular commercial brand. I don't much care for it myself, partly because it uses cheap burley tobacco which can absorb huge amounts of flavoring syrup, but mostly because I don't really like flavored tobacco, called "aromatics". But I have to admit I started off with them, at age 17. In fact, almost everyone I knew back then who smoked a pipe seemed, like me, to have started with a Dr. Grabow pipe and Cherry Blend tobacco.

I eventually switched to a plain Cavendish, particularly a Dutch blend called Troost (wonder if I still have those coupons? ). They quit some years ago, though I believe an American company now has the rights. Sail Natural is a similarly light, smooth blend. Anyway, when you get tired of digging soggy tar out of the bottom of the bowl, you might try one of those.

For the past couple of decades, I've smoked an English blend, something you may not want to try for a while -- it's not for the faint-hearted! It usually contains a mixture of matured Virginias, Latakia, and maybe some Perrique; some heavy duty stuff, as Alcuin says. This, BTW, is probably what Tolkien smoked, in one blend or another. UK regulations limit (or used to) non-tobacco ingredients in a domestically produced blend to a minimum: no more than 3%. By contrast, some blends are as high as 30% flavorings. I'd rather taste the tobacco than chocolate or whiskey. I buy Rattray's Black Mallory, when I can afford it, a heavy Scottish blend, though now made in Germany. My all-time favorite was the original Bengal Slices, no longer made, sadly, at least in the original blend.

Enough nostalgia. Yes, you definitely need a pipe tool-- many people give up because they "couldn't keep it lit". As the tobacco burns down, it needs to be tamped -- gently -- but this comes with practice. I'd suggest starting with a cheap 3-way tool from the pipe shop--under a dollar, and has what you need to begin with: tamper, pick, and spoon. Oddly, I've never had a big problem with excessive caking -- maybe because the mixture I use is fairly dry, due to the lack of flavorings, or maybe I just don't smoke any one pipe often enough.

Which brings me to the admission that I haven't bought a pipe at retail in years; the last twenty or so have been picked up at junk stores, yard sales, and flea markets. Do not laugh! I believe the last pipe I bought was a King Size Italian Caminetto, for five bucks. So there. Or something.


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## Alcuin (Apr 25, 2018)

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> My all-time favorite was the original Bengal Slices, no longer made, sadly.


Ah-a, Bengal Slices. *SeS*, you’re a bad influence! 

Try Mac Baren’s. Roll Cake and Club are similar to the old Bengal Slices, as is Mixture. 

I’m outta this thread. I quit twelve years ago, and it’s making me miss it.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Apr 25, 2018)

Hey, don't blame me -- if you click a thread about pipe smoking, you know what you're going to get! 

Golly, I haven't tried Mac Barren in decades; hard to believe a Danish blend could be anything like English -- they're usually heavy on the flavorings. But thanks, I'll keep those blends in mind.

The original tin (sigh):


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## Alcuin (Apr 25, 2018)

Apparently Bengal Slices is back:


> In 2015, the Standard Tobacco Company of Pennsylvania acquired the trademark and approached our own blender, Russ Ouellette, to recreate the tobacco. Russ had already made an homage to Bengal Slices with his Fusilier's Ration. But, now armed with more detailed information about the original, Russ was able to fine tune the blend and top note to recreate the crumble cake accurately. The result is a bright, sweet and smoky blend, delivered in the original crumble cake form. The flavor is lively, but with depth, and the aroma is quite unique, being one of the few Latakia blends that most bystanders find appealing. If you enjoy Latakia and Orientals, but want something different, you have to try Bengal Slices.


Pipes and Cigars
1911 Spillman Dr.
Bethlehem, PA 1801

A long discussion of the history of the blend here. I very briefly smoked the Sobranie version, then the Gallaher version, which was a little different from the Sobranie, which was smoother. It was the Gallaher version that was ended for a while, and that’s a Gallaher tin in the photo.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Apr 25, 2018)

Yes, I did read about that, thanks. Reviewers differ on how closely it matches the original, complicated by the fact that I'm not sure which "original" they're talking about. At one point, it (or the name at least) was sold to a Danish company, which came up with something that was not remotely like the English blend I smoked back in the 70's. I bought a tin of that, sometime in the 90's, I believe, and was sorely dissapointed.

All this trading back and forth gets confusing!

A couple more tips for CL: if you do shop for pipes, you'll be looking for one that appeals to you, of course, but try to pick one that's somewhat light, for the reasons Alcuin states, and also with a fairly thick bowl-- it tends not to get as hot,as well as drawing out moisture better.

Which reminds me: if your pipe is too hot to hold, it's too hot! Set it down until it cools, even if you have to relight it. If it's getting that hot, your drawing too fast, and are liable to burn a hole in the bowl, ruining the pipe.

Which means, don't smoke in a strong wind, or while driving with the windows down, either -- although I suppose there's little danger of that with a churchwarden!


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## Alcuin (Apr 25, 2018)

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> At one point, it (or the name at least) was sold to a Danish company, which came up with something that was not remotely like the English blend I smoked back in the 70's.


Yes, that was my experience, too: although I also liked the Gallaher (second) blend, I preferred the _original_ original, the Sobrani. 

Tobacco blends come and go. The tobacco shop I used in Boston is no more, according to Google this evening.

───◊───

Non-sequitur: Monty Python’s Tobacconist’s Shop


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Apr 25, 2018)

Yup. Used to be two Tinder Box's in the city I lived in for many years; now there's not one in the entire state.

And the independent store there seems to have turned into a vape place.

Looks like you got out just in time!


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## CirdanLinweilin (May 6, 2018)

Alcuin said:


> Most pipes are made of wood from the root of the Mediterranean briar. The wood should be extremely light: as a rule of thumb, the less dense the wood, the better the pipe will smoke. White pipes are made from a light clay called meerschaum. Both briar and meerschaum come from the Mediterranean (or Black Sea) region, although there are also deposits of meerschaum in the United States.
> 
> Good meerschaum floats, but floating your meerschaum pipe will ruin it. And if you wash your briar pipe to clean it, you’ll ruin it, too. (My wife’s grandmother washed her grandfather’s pipes, thinking she was doing him a favor: ruined them all.) Meerschaum starts out white, but slowly discolors with time, giving older meerschaum pipes a distinctive brown coloring. Many people love them, but I preferred briar root.
> 
> ...


Good to know, along with everything else you told me. Thanks, Man!


CL


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## 1stvermont (May 11, 2018)

Alcuin said:


> Tolkien smoked until he died at age 81. Maybe he’d have lived longer had he not smoked. I understand the cause of death was a bleeding ulcer complicated by a chest infection. Smoking tobacco aggravates ulcers. (In those days, doctors did not understand that ulcers are caused by bacterial infections, often _H. pylori_, which is also implicated in tooth decay and heart attacks.) Smoking also makes you much more susceptible to lung infections.
> 
> If you want to live longer, don’t smoke. Pipe smoking reduces your life expectancy by more than 5 years. *An extra five productive years would have given us a lot more Tolkien material to pore over*.




I was thinking of this today at work no idea why. In his letters he something along the lines of that he could not even concentrate later in life on his material unless he had a pipe going. So really it seems we would have less had he not smoked the pipe.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (May 11, 2018)

I recently read a quote from him: "Every morning I wake up and think, ah, another 24 hours of pipe-smoking!"

And I came across this little clip:






There's also this:






Does anyone know anything about the recording? This is the only clip of it I could find. 1929? Really?



Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> This, BTW, is probably what Tolkien smoked, in one blend or another.



After looking on some pipe forums, I now expect this was wrong. There is conflicting evidence, including pictures of old tins in Tolkien's house, but the consensus seems to be that he generally smoked a straight Virginia, primarily Capstan's Blue Navy Flake.

Just in case anyone's interested. 

I just came across this gentleman: "Muttnchop Piper". Here's his introductory video. The rocking and mild demeanor have a somewhat soporific effect , but try to remain awake till 2:30!


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Jun 5, 2021)

Sure, why not.

If only to say that I burned out one of my favorite pipes the other day. 😢




First time it's ever happened. Ah well, it gave many years of service. RIP, Lorenzo.

Oh, also, I took the opportunity to change the photo of the Bengal Slices tin. Alcuin was correct -- I had a newer one. Fixed now.


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## Miguel (Jun 5, 2021)

Lorenzo?


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Jun 5, 2021)

Yes, it's name of the company. That one is a Lorenzo Elba Imperia, Style 8661, to be precise.

I don't name my pipes, if that's what you thought. 

Though if I did, "Smaug" would be appropriate. 😀


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## Miguel (Jun 5, 2021)

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> I don't name my pipes, if that's what you thought.
> 
> Though if I did, "Smaug" would be appropriate. 😀



Why not? 

I like Smaug for a pipe name, or Gostir.


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