I recently attended a large, semiannual antiques and vintage items sale about an hour away from home. It was one of those outdoor, rain or shine, events and so of course it rained the entire time I was there. Despite a golf umbrella, raincoat and waterproof hiking boots, I was wet to the skin within a few minutes. In any other situation I may have contemplated packing it in and getting warm and dry instead of squelching through wet grass, but I was on the hunt for estate pipes, and would not be deterred by something as mundane as bad weather.

I love the hunt. It’s part of what makes estate pipes so exciting. You never know when you’ll stumble across something interesting, rare, or historically significant. Valuable would be nice too, but let’s not push it. This turned out to be a good day of hunting. I spent three…