Lately, I’ve been craving all forms of tobacco. Snuffing heavily everyday, some days I will dip, chew, or snus regularly. Well the last few days I’ve really been craving some good ol tobaccy smoke. I bought a nice Romeo n Jolieta(forgive the spelling) Robusto stogie the other day and it was lovely. I probably have a cigar every couple months when I get a good craving. Today my curiosity got the best of me and I purchased a cheap cob pipe with a crooked plastic mouth piece. (I checked the whole display, they were all crooked) The tobacco, Borkum Riff Bourbon & Whiskey. They had a few flavors of Borkum and a few of other brands in pouches and a few expensive 30 dollar tins which I’m guessing is flake? I wouldn’t know the difference anyway… I don’t know Jack about pipes… but it did satisfy my craving. Still unsure if this will become a regular thing or not. I will enjoy this small pouch until it’s gone.

Careful. If you think snuff addiction is expensive then wait until you get into pipes. Seriously though, there’s a world of great pipe tobacco’s just waiting to be discovered by the intrepid piper. Best way to burn tobacco is in a pipe IMHO.

Personally I think you’ll either get totally carried away with it, or back heel it quickly. I tried with the pipe for a while earlier this year, but it didn’t really click with me. I still have the gear (thankfully I didn’t spend any silly money on pipes), and still have some baccy which is probably dried out. I keep promising myself I will revisit it at some point, but on the whole, snuff, e-cigs and roll ups (with the occasional cheap cigar) suit me better right now.

Like BigNose said it can be a slippery slope. I started with a couple corn cobs and a couple cheap basket pipes. In three years that has ballooned to almost 40 pipes. Only a couple pounds of tobacco in reserve, but I’ve bought 30 or so pounds in those 3 years. Borkum Riff doesn’t have a lot of fans on the forums, but it sure seems to be smoked by a lot of people in the real world. If you like it smoke it. I do suggest mid range, $50-$100 pipes to start or cobs. Better odds of getting a good to great pipe than the low end “basket” pipes. Cob pipes should only be purchased if they are from Missouri Meeschaum. The cheaper imitations tend to catch fire and burn out/up after a few smokes. MM’s last longer, many years in some cases.

I can see how it can balloon into something huge. Seems like a pretty expensive hobby. I took a few minutes and browsed a few online pipe shops and found the prices to be shockingly high.

One of the main reasons for quitting cigarettes was the price. 6-8 dollars a pack a day was just getting to be a huge financial burden. 200/month can be better spent else where. How many pipes does an average user have? Can you get away with just having one good pipe and using it daily?

I started smoking a pipe not long after I started using snuff. I really enjoy a couple bowls a day. I started with a Missouri Meerschaum like @bigmick mentioned and they are great but the other day I finally bought an Italian briar for $21 at a local smoke shop, I think it’s briar, it’s definitely wood and has “ITALY” carved near the stem. It works great and I would say yes you can use only one pipe daily if you take care of it properly. Make sure to get some kind of pipe tool, the Czech tool works perfect and should cost no more than $3 depending on where you buy it, it has a scraper/spoon for cleaning the bowl, a pick for loosening up a tightly packed bowl and a tamper for lightly pressing down the tobacco in the bowl. I would highly recommend www.PipesandCigars.com for all your pipe needs. They have the best selection, prices and service anywhere on the internet and ship USPS first class as their lowest priced shipping for around $4. Check them out if you haven’t already and enjoy your future pipe smoking endeavors!

If you want to try briars, don’t underestimate a $30 Grabow. Those and cobs are all I smoke and I get along just fine. Not that I am downing high-end pipes, just saying it doesn’t have to be too expensive when you could be spending that money on tobacco. But then I am also just as happy with a bowl of Half&Half as I am with a bowl of Bullseye Flake.

One of the main reasons for quitting cigarettes was the price. 6-8 dollars a pack a day was just getting to be a huge financial burden. 200/month can be better spent else where. How many pipes does an average user have? Can you get away with just having one good pipe and using it daily?

@wiscsnuffer The short answer re only one pipe is it depends. If you only smoke one pipe a day then you could probably get by with one quality briar but most people prefer to rest their pipe for at least 48 hrs lest they suffer the phenomenon of “soggy bottom”. As to how many pipes a day, well that’s up to you. Some smoke a pipe on a Friday evening and others smoke 10 a day. When i gave up my 2 and a half pack a day habit I smoked 6-7 bowls a day. With snuff and chew/snus i am down to 2-3. BTW try some good tobacco like Dunhill, G L Pease, Samuel Gawith, Esoterica Tobacatina and the like for some impressive results. Drug store blends in pouches can be good but most of them are cloying and burn the mouth.

a good pipe and good tobacco is a joyful and beautiful thing

If you plan to smoke more than one bowl a day I’d say you need at least 4 pipes. Giving a pipe 24 or so hours to dry out is best. I have pipes that I smoke 2 or 3 bowls in a day, but then they get to sit for 4-5 days. Back when I started I had 3 pipes. I smoked 2 blows a day is different pipes. One pipe for my morning Latakia tobacco and the other two for evenings. My morning pipe did get a off flavor after a few months, but that was likely poor cleaning and lousy technique. Current advice is to smoke one bowl in a pipe and let it rest for 24-48 hours. My grandfathers smoked one pipe all day long and again the same pipe the next day. When it went bad or burned out they’d pull a new one from the drawer. Of course he only bought Dr. Grabows or Falcons. For the money one spends for pipes now a days I treat mine with care hoping they last longer than I do.

Thanks for all the replies guys. Great info for a newbie. I checked out pipesandcigars.com and would consider ordering from them in the future. Thanks for the reference md363. I’ve got a few questions. When I bought my pipe, the lady asked if I wanted a brass or stainless screen? I told her stainless and she put it in for me. How long do the screens last? How often do you stir or prod your bowl when smoking? I have to admit, it brought me back to the days of packing bowls after bowls of green

Did you buy this pipe at a head shop? I don’t know any tobacco smokers who use a screen in their pipes. No offense intended but I don’t think the lady you bought it from knows much about pipe-smoking.

screens? in a tobacco pipe? not something im familiar with…

How come there isnt any metal pipes? Metal or glass was my main go to’s with the other stuff. Just curious…

Oh lol yea all our tobacconists around here are just head shops really. They use tobacco as a front. It is the same place that I get my we garret snuff and silver dollar though. They have a selection of cigars, hookah and pipe tobbaco. :">

im not really sure to be honest, i was the same way, glass for safety and comfort, metal for durability, and it was concealable haha.

I wondered the same thing about the screens for a tobacco pipe at first, but with some questions to people on here and elsewhere and some research of my own I found that no one really uses a screen in a tobacco pipe. If you think about it, there is no need for one as there are no tiny broken pieces with proper tobacco and nothing will come through the stem into your mouth and also, a metal screen will tarnish the flavor of the tobacco, which is I’m sure one reason there are no metal pipes, also metal would get really hot. Dr. Grabow pipes, I believe, have some sort of metal and rubber gasket filtering system in the stem to help prevent anything from coming through, hot ash or tobacco, and anything going down to the bowl, saliva, which is interesting, you may want to look into that. Glass, I don’t know, it’s breakable? And tradition calls for wooden pipes.

I suppose wood is traditional. I could taste the screen when my bowl was just about gone. I will be yanking that out tomorrow. I guess I didnt even get a cob pipe. It says Missouri Meerschaum “hardwood” at the bottom…idk it was the same price as the cobs that were right next to it, but looked better

@wiscsnuffer Glass-metal etc is no good due to the moisture content in pipe tobacco. When you smoke dope it has been completely dried out but pipe tobacco has between 5-15% moisture content depending on the blend. Briar, Meerchuam and cobs all help absorb the moisture while you smoke so your pipe doesnt gurgle all the time. Go on ebay and spend $20 on an estate pipe. Cheap new pipes are crap (with the very occasional exception).

MM Hardwood pipes are great pipes. MM had a small supply problem with the drought causing suitable cobs not growing well enough to keep up with production so they expanded their line of wood pipes. I can’t comment on durability, but the rep at the pipe show locally said they last as well or better than the cobs. Plus the new hardwood line has most of the popular cob shapes. The one I have smokes just as well as my cobs. Good choice.

have fun, pipes are for enjoyment. experimentation is key. never rush a pipe. enjoy the pipe. I think pipes maybe my favorite tobacco, a treat.

If you save $200 a month smoking a pipe then you can buy $150 pipes and $50 on pipe tobacco or any combination. Main thing is your no longer a slave to cigarettes :-bd Taste change and you will settle into your groove ,You will enjoy life better and develop into a calmer person. The Surgeon General report states pipe smokers live longer than non-smokers

The problem with money is that I am spending 200+ a month on snuff right now :)) I’ve also developed a tea obsession since I stopped consuming massive quantities of alcohol. It seems I replace addictions with other addictions

Yeah, that’s often how it goes. I was potty about good coffee for a while after I quit booze. As for the $: I spent the money I could have saved from not drinking on other stuff, still it’s a better life now than it was before.

I still enjoy a nice ale every now and then. And I need fewer drinks to get the job done haha no more liters of vodka for this guy. Back to pipes. It didnt take more than half of a pipe before I started loading my nose with Almond Toast. I forgot how much smoke dulls the scent of smell. I didnt get much almond that I so much enjoy. I tried with other snuffs such as Elmo’s and viking range. Still, reduces my snuff enjoyment probably in half. I will most likely only pull this out when I get that strong craving for smoke again. It was a nice experience though. This borkum riff smells way better in the pouch than burning in the bowl. I thought of balling up some of it and ramming it up there

I’ve smoked only one pipe tobacco in my life - Tilbury Cherry Cream. It was 50g-100g, I think. I still have somewhere my pipe made of pear wood, but I’m not too much into smoking.

I have been an occasional pipe smoker for about 2 years now, maybe 3 bowls a week. I have 4 pipes in my collection (1 MM Corn Cob, 3 Briars) and have spent about 80 dollars on various tobaccos from SmokingPipes.com. I got into the habit after my friend gave me a cob filled with Frog Morton latakia from McClelland. I was like wow, I didn’t know smoking could taste so good! (I had smoked cigarettes for 15 years) and kept wondering when I would try it again. I went out and bought a corncob of my own and they gave me some of that Borkum Riff Whiskey to sample. I smoked a bowl of it, and hated it. Tried another one, and threw it out. I didn’t give up though and ordered a can of the Frog Morton I had tried and a couple other McClelland brands… and was hooked again. No mouth burn and a pleasant aroma. My advice is to shop around, try a few different blends/flavours and above all, throw out the drug store, over the counter crap. It’s not worth it, sours the whole experience. I have about 8 blends I rotate, sometimes I like an aromatic (Peter Stokkebye’s Peaches and Cream, good stuff!) other times a virginia or a latakia (McLelland’s Jubilee, Frog Morton are two favorites of mine. You will find something you like, it’s a very rewarding experience when you get the right pipe with the right blend. My friend who started me with the corncob had never smoked a cigarette once in his life, like me he just enjoys a pipe once in awhile to relax. Good luck!

If your going to smoke, Treat yourself to the best tobacco you can afford ,You may not be here tomorrow.

Had my first pipe smoking experience not so long ago…stuck on aromatics for now, until I find a blend I like of non-aromatics. I’ve tried Dunhill 965 and Nightcap as well as McClelland 5110 full english which was pretty good. For now I’m staying with the Lane’s 1-Q and LL-7. I need to try Frog Morton soon…if only my tobacconist was true to his name and carried more then Captain Black and Borkum Riff, sigh hehe

If your going to smoke, Treat yourself to the best tobacco you can afford ,You may not be here tomorrow.

I have made that mistake in the past. I once bought a large bulk order of some really horrible Cavendish pipe tobacco and I really wished that I had ordered some C&D. Life is far too short to make that mistake again.

@peter77 sorry for your loss, I had once got 1lb of early morning pipe, tasted nothing like the tin . I had to blend it with another lb of orientals to get it suitable for being smoked. It’s finally gone. There are a lot of lousy tobaccos out there. Live and learn.

One of the main reasons for quitting cigarettes was the price. 6-8 dollars a pack a day was just getting to be a huge financial burden. 200/month can be better spent else where. How many pipes does an average user have? Can you get away with just having one good pipe and using it daily?

Best to have at least two. Smoke one the first day, clean it and let it rest with a pipe cleaner in it for a day. If you branch out to different types of pipe tobacco, it’s good to have one pipe dedicated for each type: One for aromatics, one for English blends, one for virginias, one for burleys, etc.

I just want you guys to know that I hate wasting tobacco, so feel free to send me any pipe tobacco that you can not bare to smoke any more