Tag Archives: a Christmas shop in Berlin that featured characters with pipes

Restemming and Restoring a Hardwicke’s Freehand

Blog by Steve Laug

One of the pipe bowls that came to me in the box of pipes from my brother was a tall nicely grained freehand that was stamped on the shank Hardwicke’s and Italy on the underside of the shank next to the shank stem junction. I had never heard of the brand before and it was not listed on Pipedia or on the Pipephil website. The more I looked in my usual sources such as Who Made that Pipe the more stymied I was about the brand. It was an interesting shaped bowl. The bowl had some dark marks on the shank, the bowl bottom and on the right side at the point and up the side midway. There was a thick coat of urethane over the entire bowl and the faux plateau. The rustication on the rim matched that of the end of the shank and had been done with tools. There was a thick coat of tars and oils under the urethane on the rim. The bowl itself had a thick cake in it that filled it from top to bottom. The first quarter inch down from the top of the rim had a darker stain that ran down the walls. (I almost forgot to take photos of the bowl before I had sanded all of the urethane off the surface. I stopped and caught these. On the lower part of the bowl on the right side there was a spot of real plateau. I went through my box of stems and had a stem that would work really well with this pipe. It would need to have the tenon end reduced so that it would sit in the mortise.I decided to Google Hardwicke’s Cigar and Pen to see if the pipe could have been a shop pipe. It was made in Italy but the Hardwicke’s stamping pointed elsewhere. I found that there was a group of shops in Indianapolis, Indiana. The main shop was located at 743 Broad Ripple Ave, Indianapolis.One reviewer of the shop had this to say about the shop: “This small cigar shop is located just south of the circle, so in the heart of downtown. They carry a pretty impressive stock of cigars and the pricing is relatively reasonable considering their location. The staff is incredibly knowledgeable and willing to help you find something in your price range. They do have a lot of cigars at the $5 price point so don’t be put off by the fact there are also a lot of $15+ cigars.”

“They also have their own brand, which is rolled with several different tobaccos and in several sizes, these should not be overlooked, especially if you don’t want to spend a lot on your smoke.”

“They also offer pens, pipes, pipe tobacco and the usual array of cutters and lighters you’d expect from a cigar shop. I’ve only purchased cigars here so cannot comment the rest of their offerings, although their selection of pipes does seem good to me.”

Further digging found an article in the Indy Star newspaper about the Downtown shop closing. The article also says that the Broad Ripple Store remains open. I have included the link to the article as well the article in full. http://www.indystar.com/story/money/2016/01/20/smoke-free-downtown-landmark-hardwickes-exits/78800744/

Hardwicke’s Pipe & Tobacco, a long-time Indianapolis fixture, seems to have shuttered its Downtown store.

The inventory was being removed last week, and a store clerk said closure was imminent. The store now stands empty, void entirely of the fine cigars, cigarettes and pipes the retailer sold for five decades.

Hardwicke’s Broad Ripple store, which predates the Downtown shop, remains open. Staffers answering the phone there declined to comment on the fate of the Downtown location, which had occupied a storefront at 18 N. Meridian St., just off Monument Circle, since 1977.

The demise of Hardwicke’s Downtown comes amid a flurry of change for Indianapolis’ old-time businesses.

Last month Kincaid’s, the high-end meat market at 56th and Illinois streets that had been in the same family since its founding nearly a century ago, was sold. Virginia Jarvis Coiffures, a beauty shop for many of Indianapolis’ leading women since 1965, closed its doors Saturday. G. Thrapp Jewelers, in the Butler-Tarkington neighborhood, closed Sunday after 33 years.

Contact IndyStar reporter Will Higgins at (317) 444-6043. Follow him on Twitter @WillRHiggins.
So now I knew that the pipe I had was indeed a shop pipe made for Hardwicke’s Tobacco Shop of Indianapolis. Now it was time to work on it and restore and restem it. I sanded the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the urethane finish that covered the grime and the burn marks. I sanded the burn marks and tried to reduce the damage to the briar. The more I worked on them the more I am convinced that they were not burn marks but rather dark stains that happened when the bowl was laid in something that left a stain mark. I remember when my mom made pickles when I was a lad and the jars of vinegar left dark rings in the oak table top. These looked identical to the ones I remember as a boy. I sanded and was able to remove several of them. I wiped the bowl down with acetone to clean off the stain and the dust.The rim was thickly caked. I worked on it with a brass bristle wire brush and a dental pick to remove the build up on the rim. You can see from the second photo the rustication pattern in the faux plateau on the rim. It is identical to the one that is cut on the end of the shank.I reamed the bowl with a PipNet reamer and took the cake back to bare wood. I cleaned up the edges and the bottom of the bowl with the Savinelli Pipe Knife.I sanded the bowl with a medium and fine grit sanding sponge and then with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads to remove the scratching in the surface left behind by the 220 grit sandpaper. I remove the darkening around the top of the rim so the surface of the briar was the same over the entire bowl. The bottom of the bowl shows a scratch in the surface that looks like it is a hairline crack. Looking at it with a magnifier I am pretty sure it is a scratch and not a crack.To deal with the darkened spots on the shank and the bowl bottom as well as the scratch I decided to use a contrast stain. I stained the bowl with a black aniline stain and flamed it. I repeated the process until the coverage was even.I wiped down the black stain with alcohol on cotton pads to remove the stain in the body of the briar and leave it in the grain.I washed it down with an alcohol damp pad and gave it a top coat of brown stain. I flamed it and applied it until the coverage was even. Then I set it aside to dry.I used the Dremel and sanding drum to reduce the diameter of the tenon. I cleaned it up with a piece of 220 grit sandpaper. I put the stem in the shank and took some photos of the look of the pipe at this point in the process. I sanded the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the tooth chatter on the top and bottom sides of the stem at the button.I cleaned out the airway with a pipe cleaner and alcohol. It was not dirty at all which surprised me.I wiped down the bowl with alcohol on cotton pads and then buffed the bowl with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit micromesh sanding pads and rubbed it down with Obsidian Oil. I dry sanded with 3200-4000 grit pads, gave it another coat of oil and finished sanding it with 6000-12000 grit pads. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set it aside to dry. I buffed the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. It removed a little more of the brown stain and made it a bit more translucent. I gave the stem and bowl several coats of carnauba wax and buffed it with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. The new stem looks like it belongs with the pipe and the curve of the bowl and the new stain look great in my opinion. The grain on the pipe is very nice. The black and brown stain combination hides the dark mars on the shank and the bowl. They are still present but blend in nicely. Thanks for looking.

I walked through the door of the shop…and what to my wondering eye should appear?

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Blog by Steve Laug

We live in a time of political correctness and a burgeoning anti-smoking lobby. More and more of the childhood characters that I grew up recognizing them by the pipe in their mouth have had the pipe eradicated. Frosty the Snowman is sans pipe, so is Old King Cole, Popeye and even Santa Claus. The ongoing removal of all things pipe and tobacco from the stories of some of my early childhood favourites continues with new victims being added each day to the blade of this hunt. It is irritating to see figurines of characters that the pipe was a part of their persona all mercilessly without the signature pipe. I have come to expect that when I see wood carvings of figurines the pipe will be noticeably missing. It is with that background that the events described in this blog took place.

I travel quite a bit for the work I do – both in Canada and globally. I am always on the hunt for pipes and tobacco shops for me but I also have an ongoing assignment to bring something notable home for my wife and four daughters. On a recent trip to Europe I was in Germany, visiting Stuttgart, Karlsruhe and then ending the trip with about 3 days in Berlin. Down the street from my hotel was a beautiful Christmas shop. My wife has trained me to pay attention to these shops and have a look. Over the years we pick up Christmas ornaments for our four daughters and ourselves at these shops to remember our trips. I could not pass up a visit to the Käthe Wohlfahrt in Berlin, which is open all year, located on the Kurfürstendamm at numbers 225 and 226 (opposite the famous Café Kranzler). I could not be that close to a Christmas shop of that renown and fail to visit it. If the wife and daughters got wind of the fact that I was that close to a shop they would have loved and did not take the time for a visit I would never live it down. Thus, with fear and trembling I knew that I needed to visit and make some purchases for the family Christmas collection. On the second morning I walked down the street and visited the shop.

The shop is huge. It fills two floors and as you wander through it you find baskets and trees and walls of wonderful ornaments, fine Christmas decorations and stylish gift ideas for every occasion. At the heart of the store is a winding, spiral rotunda, leading from the ground floor to the first floor, which allows you to walk up around a festively decorated tree. I have included the photo below and the link to their website for other Christmas lovers. https://wohlfahrt.com/102-1-berlin As I wandered through the shop I found that it was filled with many surprises from finally carved Black Forest Cuckoo Clocks to Christmas carousels with windmill blades on top that turned from the heat generated by candles. There were ornaments and carved table settings that all were amazing. But for this North American who has visited many Christmas shops around the world and in both the US and Canada the greatest surprise was the fact that many of the ornaments and displays had Santa Claus and other characters that were smoking pipes. These pipes were a prominent feature of the characters. I have to say that discovering this was a breath of fresh air for me. I have almost given up on finding Santa figures with a pipe let alone wood cutters, dwarves and elves all with pipes. I was delighted and took pictures all around the shop to capture some of the figures and displays showing pipes. There were so many that I easily could have filled a memory card with photos. The few I took convey the feeling of the prevalence of the pipe among the characters of the shop. I am including those photos in this blog to give you a bit of a feel for what I saw.

Use your imagination to walk with me up the winding, spiral rotunda in the shop and see the figures through my eyes. I felt like a kid in a candy shop. Not only could I find the ornaments that my wife and daughters would love but I could also take in the stirred memories of childhood characters from books and movies that were present with pipe in hand or mouth. It was astounding. In the first photo I took every character had a pipe in his mouth regardless of the figure. There must have been over 30-40 figurines in that display and all had different pipes. Some were short pipes like the ones in the photo below and some were longer old German style folk pipes. The next display that caught my eye was a shelf filled with a variety of Santa Claus figures. Every one of them had a pipe in his mouth all different pipes of various shapes and styles. Even the wooden cut out tableaus had pipemen featured in them. The picture below shows one such tableau with a wood-cutter taking a pipe break after cutting firewood. The first photo below is a close up of the wood-cutter. The second photo is of the larger tableau – with a base of at least 1 meter. Throughout the scene there were figures smoking a variety of pipes. Next to the wood-cutter was another tableau of a quiet clearing in the woods with trees and ground covered with snow. In that scene there were several figures at work, again all had pipes in their mouths. When I finished taking in as much of the shop as my mind and eye could contain I carried the ornaments I had picked for the wife and daughters to the cash register to check out. As I laid them down on the counter I looked up. And what to my wondering eye should appear? There above the checkout desk was another Santa figurine with a German Folk pipe in his mouth. Thanks for giving this old man’s written memories a read. For me the shop was a breath of fresh air. It was a delight to walk into a shop that still paid service to my literary and film memories of characters who I grew up with who still looked like I remembered them. It was a pleasure to see that those who raise the placard of anti smoking had not made their way into this bit of paradise and sanitized yet another place of memories from my childhood. Yes indeed, the pipe is alive and well in the figurines of at least one Christmas Shop that I visited. I only wish the shop was closer to Vancouver so that I could visit again to take in more of the incredible ornaments and figurines. Ah well, I will be back in Berlin again in the year ahead and will certainly visit the shop once again.