In this interview, James sat down with R. Bear Graves to discuss his time in and around the tobacco pipe industry. How did you first get into pipes? It started when I was five years old. I was living in a living in Alaska and my father’s best friend smoked a pipe, and I just…
To see our currently available Stanwell pipes, click here. Stanwell is one of the most popular contemporary pipe-manufacturers, as well as being the oldest Danish-owned manufacturer still in operation at the time of writing (2024). As a result, Stanwell is one of the most common makes found on the contemporary estates market. If you’ve encountered…
Dating Barling Pipes: A Three Step Guide To see our currently available Barling and Barling’s Make pipes, click here. As MBSD sells many restored estate pipes, we often get questions as to when they were made. Many pipes, such as Castellos, Charatans or Custom-Bilts, have communities of collectors who prefer pipes made during one period…
Briar Pipe Finishes, Part 1: Smooths by CW Hawes Following its introduction as a pipe material in the middle 1800s, briar quickly became the dominant material for making pipes for the general pipe-smoking public. Briar is durable, and with reasonable care, a briar pipe will serve generations of pipe smokers. Another feature of briar is…
In this article, James takes a deep dive into the concept of the ‘freehand pipe.’ This is the first of a multi-part series exploring concepts like ‘freehand’ in and outside of pipe culture and history. Where possible, illustrations are included, but the reader is encouraged, if they are not already familiar with the pipes and…
