I rarely smoke a pipe anymore. I will smoke a clay pipe around a campfire at reenactments, but there aren't a lot of those in Washington State. Was more frequent during the times I lived in Vermont and Virginia (18-yrs.). Cool thing about clay pipes is that if they get "tarred up" you can just set them on the coals in a fire to burn itself clean. Don't try that with a briar pipe! I smoked pipes a lot when I was 18 and intermittently since. Never enough to say I'm a regular pipe smoker though. If you ever do smoke pipes, you can't smoke just one. You need to let briar pipes dry out between uses, so you always have multiple pipes. Would be unusual to find a pipe smoker who didn't have at least 4 to 6 pipes - or 7 so you have one for every day of the week.
Looks like I still have nine pipes...nope 10. Seven of those are briar pipes, one is "the Pipe", which is from the late 60's. Unlike a briar pipe you didn't need to break it in by building up a crust of carbon inside the bowl. It came with some artificial interior coating that they advertised as heat shielding material used in spacecraft. It actually is always a cool smoking pipe and never gets hot in the hand. You do have to keep it clean to make it work correctly though.
Another pipe I have is a classic Meerschaum pipe that my brother bought for me in Turkey and sent to me while he was in the army in 1970-72 stationed in Germany. It has the yellow stem and the bearded man head as the bowl. Never did smoke it enough to color it much but there is some color to it.
Lastly, I have a small Calabash pipe (gourd for the outer covering with a meerschaum bowl) with sterling silver accents and an ebonite stem. My parents bought it for me in 1970 when they were in England. Said it was made in 1910 and had belonged to a British officer from the Boer Wars, who carried it with him inside its case in his pocket. It actually has silversmith marks on it and, from the marks, it was indeed made in Birmingham in 1910. The gourd outer covering is richly colored. It was the pipe I would smoke at home sitting in a chair in the back yard with a dram of single malt in a crystal whisky glass in my hand. Was offered $500 for it about 5-years ago, but my parents are both gone now and I'm keeping it. I probably only use it once or twice a year now, but I do enjoy looking at it.
When I do smoke a pipe I usually use some Black Cavendish tobacco in it.
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