My estate pipe collecting must have hit critical mass this past month. Most of what I get in an average estate lot are complete pipes; of these, about 90% or more are able to be restored to close to factory condition. The other 5-10%, however, are too far gone and I end up salvaging what I can. This is why I have a box of stems and a box of bowls. I figured eventually I’d find stems to fit the bowls or vice versa, and last week I found the parts to assemble my first pipe from these spare parts.

The bowl was in relatively good shape, but with some obvious fills that would need some work to disguise. It was stamped “LVG” over “Select” on the left shank, and, barely visible, a round “Made in England” stamp on the top right shank. The stem I chose to fit to…