After birth of my firstborn daughter, when I was 30, I picked up the pipe again for the first time in about 10 years. My first foray back into pipes was to buy a cheap Medico Brylon pipe, Medico filters, pipe cleaners and some Borkum Riff from a local 7-Eleven in Escondido, California. (Some of you may well remember the days when the local convenience store sold both pipes and pipe tobacco and had them readily displayed for convenience. Some of you may have missed those good days.) It did not take long before I began to start looking for a different pipe. I visited local Tinderbox stores and did not find one that struck my fancy. Mind you it was 1982 and I was not into the traditional shaped pipes and some of the freehand shapes just did not do it for me either. One day I happened on a little shop in Vista, California just across the street from where I was working. I stopped by on my lunch hour one day and got engaged in a great conversation with the older gentleman who was smoking a pipe was sitting behind the till. He said he was the owner of the shop and that his name was Bill. (He was probably about the age I am now, but when I was 30 everyone looked older in my mind.)

We talked during that lunch hour about the kind of tobacco I smoked and the pipes I had. I told him I had only smoked the tobaccos I had purchased through drugstores, grocery stores and convenience stores. That limited the tobacs to Sail, Borkum Riff, Velvet, Half and Half, Sir Walter Raleigh, Prince Albert and Mixture 79. He laughed and said I had not really smoked anything that he would consider worth the time. They were staple tobaccos but I needed to try something of better quality and fuller flavour. He introduced me to some of the better bulk tobaccos that he had available and gave me some sample of Virginia and Virginia and Perique blends to try. I was hooked and quickly quit buying the Borkum Riff. I also tried a nice toasted Cavendish that became my go to blend for quite a while.

I showed him my little Medico Brylon billiard and I have to give him credit, he did not mock it or laugh when he saw it. He asked me some questions about whether it burned hot or wet. He talked about caring for the pipe and keeping it clean. He showed me how to pack the pipe and tamp it. All things I had learned before but things he wanted to make sure I understood. After all of that he introduced me to the world of estate pipes. He had a display case filled with a wide range of pipes of all brands and shapes. I wish I knew then what I have learned since because I remember that the pipes he had were well maintained and restored. I went through many of them and in the course of our conversation he talked about how briar would smoke better than the Brylon I currently smoked.

He asked me a price range of pipes I might be interested in. I was not sure so I gave the price as $25-40 would work for me. After all I had spent $5.95 on the Medico. He again did not laugh or shake his head in disbelief. Rather he put about 6 different pipes on the top of the display case for me to look at in that range. He walked me through the information on each pipe and showed me the condition of them and any issues that they may have had. He said I would need at least two pipes in order to give ample time for them to rest between smokes/days. Added to the little Medico that would give me a rotation of three pipes and that was a good start. I sorted through the lot that he had put up for me to look at and chose two pipes. The first was a Ben Wade – Preben Holm freehand. It had a great blast finish and felt really good in the hand. It was broken in well but Bill had reamed the cake back to a thin coating on the bowl. The stem was buffed to a shiny polish and the pipe truly looked new to me. The plateau top was great and I loved the look of it. The second one was a little Alpha, Israeli made pipe that had a more classic look to it. I am not sure of the shape of it to this day. The stem was a simple saddle bit with a denture stem on it. That is where the name Alpha Comfit came from. This was also very clean and ready to smoke. (I have since had the stem replaced. I sent out to Lee Von Erck in Northern Michigan, USA and he did the stem for me about 15 or more years ago).

Ben Wade – Preben Holm

Alpha Comfit

Both of these pipes are still in my collection and have provided many years of fine smoking pleasure for me. They have darkened over the years and have a nice patina to them now. They are pipes that I frequently pick up in my rotation because they always deliver. The photos above show the two pipes as they are today. I should polish and buff the stems a bit to remove the tooth chatter and oxidation.