Blog by Steve Laug

Irene and I just returned from a long needed holiday visiting my brother Jeff and his wife in Oregon. Of course when we are together we have to do a bit of pipe hunting. We visited shops up and down the Oregon Coast and along the Washington side of the Columbia River. We found a few notable pipes that intrigued us. I also was able to pick up quite few items that he had stored for me to take home. In the first photo below is the first finds of the trip. From the top of the left column down these are the pipe we found.

1. 1. Italian Made Calabash with a removable bowl and a rusticated finish. The stamping is not clear on it so I am not sure of the maker but it reminds me of a Ser Jacopo
   2. A rusticated Dublin with a Cumberland stem that the seller identified as an Ardor but all I can see is Italy. Turns out it has a cracked shank once I removed the sales sticker.
   3. Comoy’s Grand Slam 186 Billiard with COM circle and the Grand Slam plumbing in the tenon.
   4. Brebbia Lectura Church Warden that is bent with a rugged rustication. It is great condition.
   5. Weber Old Standard Pot with great grain and an almost full bowl of unsmoked tobacco.
   6. Peterson’s Made Irish Second Rusticated Bent Billiard in excellent shape though the stem is probably a replacement.
   7. Needham Imported Briar Pat’d System pipe – square and blocky looking but unique.

The second photo shows the next finds on the hunting trips. I have listed them below from top to bottom of the photo. I also found the moccasin pipe rest that holds one of the pipes at a local shop.

1. Made in London England Apple with an orange acrylic stem that is in great condition.
2. Roger’s Standard with a broken stem that is also stamped France. It was a free find that was given to us because the stem was broken. It is sitting in a moccasin pipe rest from the same shop.
3. Savinelli Oscar 428 Rusticated Billiard

We also visited a friend in Vancouver, Washington to pick up some pipe parts – stems, tenons, bands etc. He gifted me with a House of Robertson Straight Rusticated Bulldog with a Perspex stem. We had a great visit and enjoyed swapping stories and tobaccos. The last two pipes we added are pictured below.

1. Royalton Tru-Line Bulldog with rusticated panels and smooth panels on the bowl. It has a rusticated bowl cap and smooth shank.
2. A Bakelite Diamond Shank pipe with a rusticated briar bowl.

Here are some of the other things we picked up or were given.

1. The first was a pouch of Five Brother’s Pipe Tobacco from the fellow in Vancouver, Washington. It had belonged to an older family member – perhaps his father or uncle. He is in his 80s so it an old timer. He had a partial case of it that he took this from to give me. It is a beauty and dry as dust.
2.  The second was a tin of Christian Peper’s Pouch Mixture that was sealed in a plastic bag in the tin. It was made by the Bloch Brother’s Tobacco Company in the 1950s. It was dry but still smelled good and would be an interesting smoke.

Jeff also passed on some finds that he had made with me in mind over the past few years. This was my first visit to the states since Covid 19 so some of this had been with him quite a while.

1. A carved wooden head of a fisherman smoking a pipe. It was quite nice and was made to hang on the wall. Which it is now doing next to my desk here in Vancouver.
2. We also had picked a nice sealed pottery humidor from a seller on Facebook that I had shipped to him. It is stamped with a script signature Baldelli on the lid and Italy on the base.

I found another humidor for tobacco with a brass handle that turned in the rim edge and kept the tobacco fresh. It is stamped Welbeck [over] Made in England. The humidor is white w/ brown vertical lines design, top lip has a brown stripe, lid has a 3 arm screw closure to seal the jar, 6 1/2″ dia. x 5″ tall, hard rubber seal and is in good condition. Finally a couple of other items I brought home with me from Jeff.

1. An older book called Pipe and Pouch – The Smokers Own Book of Poetry. It was compiled by Joseph Knight and printed by HM Caldwell Co. Publishers in Boston. It has the printed copyright 1894. It is a neat old book with a built in book ribbon to keep my place and gilded page edges.
2. A pipe knife boxed in a case that is printed Rough Ryder Pipe Doctor and when opened reads rough rider. It is unused and has an end that can be used for a tamper and a blade for scraping the bowl. It is a beauty.