Tag Archives: Pipe Shops

Experiencing a New Smoke Shop in Bellingham, Washington – The Senate Smoke Shop

Blog by Steve Laug

For many years now I have been making the trek from Vancouver, British Columbia into the US to Bellingham, Washington to visit a pipe shop in old Bellingham, a place called Fairhaven. The shop is called the Fairhaven Smoke Shop and is located at 1200 Harris Avenue Suite 100 Bellingham, Washington. When I first started visiting shop 15-18 years ago it was operated be an older gent who seemed like he could have cared less if he had customers, but he had a huge assortment of estate pipes and some great older tobaccos. I got to know him over the years and enjoyed his company. About 8 years ago a young fellow – mid 20’s bought the shop and took over. I had visions of it becoming yet another head shop! But you got to give him credit. He kept it as a pipe and tobacco shop (mind you he added the typical glass pipes and hookahs). He upgraded the shop layout and look, added new pipes and tobaccos and continued in the tradition of a pipe shop. He set up a web presence at http://fairhavensmokes.com/ I really expected the place to shrivel up and disappear in the anti-smoking environment of Washington State. But instead it seems to have done well.

On Saturday I made the trip to Bellingham once again. I really was hoping to get a side trip over to Fairhaven but we did not have time to visit the shop on this trip. My wife and I brought along two of our daughters for the day. Whenever we are in Bellingham my wife and I always visit a little coffee and donut shop on Holly St. called Rocket Donuts so we wanted to show it to the girls. As we made our way to the shop my youngest daughter pointed up the street to a sign that said The Senate Tobacconist and Smoke Shop. I have walked down that street for over 20 years and I had never seen that shop. You know how sometimes you wonder if you missed seeing something because you were focused on other things? That is what crossed my mind when she pointed out the shop. My wife and the girls went in for coffee and donuts but needless to say, I had to go check out the shop.

In a world in which more and more head shops with glass pipes, bongs and the like are replacing the old bona fide tobacconist shops I had really low expectations about this shop. I walked up the street toward it and paused to read the sandwich board on the street. As yet I had not looked in the window. I have to say the sign had elements of both hopefulness and resignation in its words – hopeful: tobacco at the top of the list, and cigars – resignation: herbs and glassware. Before getting to the shop I had already made up my mind as to what I could expect when I entered. Glassware! Herbs! Sheesh, it was almost like experiencing again what I had experienced when the Tinderbox Tobacco Shops became glorified gift shops that also sold tobacco and cigars. So was this going to be a head shop that also sold a few cigars and some tobacco? I tell you what, I almost turned and went back to the coffee and donuts. I really did not want yet another disappointment.

But my curiosity got the better of me and I shrugged my shoulders and went over to the window and looked in. I fully expected a typical smoke shop/paraphernalia shop but what I saw was not that. I could not believe my eyes. The glassware was not that visible and what I saw through the window was a pipeman’s feast – lots of display cases with pipes and tins and jars of bulk tobacco front and center. Then in the back, away from the window were bookcase style humidors with many cigar choices. Off to the side in the corner was the collection of glassware. To be honest I never went over to that corner to have a look. It is truly amazing in this day and age to see a shop like this in my neck of the woods. This was a fully-fledged tobacconist!

I opened the door and went in. I laugh now, but I must have looked like a kid in a candy shop. I eyed the open topped display case of tins and pouches of tobacco for sale on my left. I looked at the brands of tobacco that were carried and available and was pleased to see many of my favourite blends. I proceeded down the display counters on the left and looked at pipes – Vauen, Peterson, Ascorti, Big Ben, Stanwell, Butz-Choquin and others beautifully laid out for the buyer to see. There were both briars and meerschaums of every shape and size and price range. The display cases were well lit and the pipes were well displayed. It was a briar feast for the eyes. I only wish I had had more time to look things over more carefully. I walked past the cash register and the Three Brass Monkeys on display in front of it, past the tobacco scales on the counter to have a look at the bulk tobacco selections. There was an unbelievable array of blends – Aromatics, Virginias, English and some straight blending tobaccos – Latakia and Perique. There were even some cigarette cut tobacco. I went through the well labeled Virginia, Virginia Perique and English blends and took each lid off to have a good sniff of the blend in the jars. I skipped over the aromatics – chocolate, raspberry, cherry, vanilla, mocha, caramel and other mixtures with edible names as it has been a long time since I smoked them. I could easily have spent more time going through the many blends that were carried by the shop. As I was only in Bellingham for one day I could only purchase a 100 gram pouch and hope to not get dinged with duty at the border. But I would be back!

I wandered through the cigar humidor sections – I loved the cherry wood cabinets that each housed cedar lined walls and shelves and a humidor unit so that each glass doored cabinet was a sealed unit. The only thing missing that I could see were the Cubans that we have in Canada. There were all kinds of cigars and all kinds of sizes. I am pretty cigar ignorant but the selection seemed to cover a wide range of country of origin, price, blend and style.

I went back to the bulk tobaccos and picked the blend I had chosen, a Dark English – Virginias, Stoved Virginias, Latakia, Orientals and Perique and carried the jar to the scale to have the proprietor weigh it out and bag it up for me. To my surprise the gent behind the counter was the same fellow who had purchased the old Fairhaven Shop, now eight years older. He recognized me and remembered our first meeting many years earlier when he had given me two tins of Erinmore Flake on a visit I made to the shop. I asked him how that shop was doing and he said it was doing well. I asked him when he had opened the Senate and why. He responded that he had always wanted a shop in this area and had opened the doors four months earlier. Business was doing well and he loved the new location. We had a great visit and I asked him about several tobaccos that he did not have. He said he would order them in. I paid for my tobacco and a couple of bundles of pipe cleaners before I headed out the door. I am looking forward to another longer visit soon.

If you find yourself in the Bellingham area, I would heartily recommend that you stop by the shop and have a visit. The shop is called the Senate and is located at 215 West Holly Street, Suite H-20. The phone number is 360-756-7552. It has a great selection of pipes and cigars as well as house blends and tinned tobacco to purchase. The proprietor Mike Waters is a great guy – personable, knowledgeable and genuinely interested in serving the pipe and cigar smoking public. Stop by and say hi. In this anti-smoking state of Washington in the anti-smoking climate of our world it was great to see a new tobacco shop open its doors. It was encouraging to see this young fellow doing well enough in his first shop to open this second one. The store will have a web presence soon as the shop website, http://www.senatecigar.com is under development. Check it often as Mike says that the full site will be open soon. Who knows we may run into each other at the shop. Until then enjoy your pipe!

Steve Laug
06/17/13

Leonard’s Pipe Shop – Portland, Oregon.

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Blog by Steve Laug

When I bought this old Leonard’s Sea Rock billiard on EBay I did a bit of hunting around the web to find out what I could about the brand. There was not a lot of information available but this is what I found out. I have edited it and added and adapted the material that I found on the web. I am unable to find who originally wrote this material. If anyone knows please leave a comment and I will acknowledge the work that person has done on gathering this helpful information.

The pipe I purchased is a shop pipe that came from one of America’s great old pipe shops – LEONARD’S PIPE SHOP which was located in Portland, Oregon, USA.The shop and the brand never was as famous as Peretti’s, Ehrlich’s, The House of Robertson, Bertram’s, Garfinkel’s, Drucquers or some of the other great names from the past, possibly because of its’ location. But in terms of stature among the world’s greatest pipe makers, Leonard’s had no equal. While some pipe shops catered to the rich and famous, served politicians or visiting emissaries,or made pipes for actors, entertainers or stars in one field or another, Leonard’s catered to the other end of the pipe chain – the all-important source of supply! The shop was founded by Arthur Leonard in 1936 who worked hard to establish close relationships with the world’s biggest and best pipe maker’s — Charatan, Barling, Sasieni, Kaywoodie and others.

In 1936, Kaywoodie was the most important name in pipes producing top-quality pipes and the most expensive pipes then available. So, it was natural for Arthur Leonard to establish a relationship with the makers of Kaywoodie. It is fairly recent that some of the greatest Kaywoodie’s ever made returned to the marketplace. For example the Leonard-owned Kaywoodie Magnums dated from the late 1930s which were displayed and ultimately sold by the family at the Chicago Pipe Show a few years ago. It will always be a question how they wound up in Portland, Oregon rather than New York, Chicago, Washington DC or the “hometown” of any of the other great pipe shops in America. The answer must lie in the relationships that Arthur Leonard established with pipemakers!

Another huge “GROUP 6” or “ODA” sized KW billiard also came on the market. It no doubt originated from a special order placed by Arthur Leonard. But the question with this pipe and others that Leonard’s had was who made it? As many collectors who visited his shop know (as well as those who have met the last generation owners, Lou and Betty Leonard) this was once one of America’s greatest pipe shops! It operated on the same corner location from 1936 through 1983 before moving to an uptown location for another six years. On display the Leonard’s had the longest and largest Kaywoodies ever made, unsmoked Dunhill Magnums and a host of pre-1900 Barlings! Arthur Leonard had established a powerful relationship with the great pipe maker’s of the last century and his shop retained the bounty of those relationships.

It is interesting that when the Barling family sold out, they called the Leonard shop and Arthur Leonard responded- – -buying every single Barling on hand at the time of sale so no inventory was acquired by the new owners (ending speculation that “Transition” Barlings were really older pieces acquired by the new owners)! Leonard did the same thing for the Sasieni family when they sold out! The Leonard’s Shop was perhaps the most well-known American smoke shop in Europe! The Leonard Shop ONLY carried high grades, so when the craze for meerschaum pipes occurred in the 1950’s and early 1960’s, (and the Turkish government restricted the exporting of raw meerschaum) the Leonard shop placed an order with Charatan for 50 meerschaum-lined Charatans! (At that time, the Supreme was the top-of-the-line Charatan! Imagine meerschaum-lined Selected’s and Supreme’s! Lou Leonard says that only about 35 were ever delivered and Charatan said they would make no more!)

I read that those who saw the Leonard’s display pipes at the Chicago Show a few years ago marveled at the quality of the uncirculated, unsmoked pipes. He had acquired the original Barling Meerschaum’s from a company that made Meerschaum pipes before making Briar pipes! The Dunhill Magnums were unsmoked in their original cases. The Kaywoodie Magnums were displayed in a specially made case. And the Sasieni’s, Charatan’s, Comoy’s and all the rest were pipes of historical importance. You see, Arthur Leonard nurtured his relationship with the supplier’s rather than the movie stars and politicians who bought pipes. In fact, Betty Leonard told stories about the vast inventory of pipes kept out of the public eye in a back room from which they were produced on an occasional basis to meet the needs of a specific customer’s request.

Like the other great American pipe shops, Leonard’s is gone. They closed their doors in 1989. Their inventory was slowly liquidated by the last family owners of the shop. It is sad that yet another piece of American pipe history is gone. It would be grand to have seen that back room filled with a huge inventory of beautiful old briars of renown. Ah well, we have to use our imaginations to enter that room now. As I go there in my mind, I load a bowl of good tobacco from Drucquer’s (another American Pipe Shop that is gone) in my Leonard’s Sea Rock and lift it in both of their memories.

ADDENDUM & CORRECTION: Please read the response below by Pete. He has added some great information that focuses and corrects some of the information above. Thank you Pete.

A Great Visit to Burlington on Whyte Tobacconist Edmonton, Alberta

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I just returned from a long work related trip to the province of Alberta. My trip began in Edmonton, Alberta, the provincial capitol city. While I was there I planned to make a trip over to the Burlington on Whyte Tobacconist shop. Whyte Avenue is in an older part of Edmonton and has a lot of very interesting old shops, pubs and restaurants. My plan was to spend some time visiting the shop and having a look at their wares and their tobacco blends. I had looked at their website http://www.tobacconist.ca/ and had found some intriguing sounding blends of tobacco that I wanted to see and smell. Their website has some great photos. The first picture below shows the interior of the shop from the front door.

One click on the menu bar shows the tobacco menu of the house blends that shop carries. I have included a picture of the menu below for your viewing. This is unique in my experience of online pipe websites in Canada. I have found that generally tobacconists are not allowed to list their tobaccos and give details for the tobacco blends, so I was pleasantly surprised with this extensive list. Burlington on Whyte still gives an extended list of the blends and the basic components in each one. I have to say that for a Canadian pipe shop this is quite an impressive menu.

It was these two things – the look of the shop and the list of tobaccos – that intrigued me enough to add a visit to the shop to my itinerary.

So on a sunny afternoon I found myself free. All of my work meetings and appointments were over for the day. So my daughter and I took a trip over to Whyte Avenue. According to the website the shop is located at 10468 – 82nd Avenue just off of Whyte Avenue. I input that data into my iPhone GPS and headed out to find the place. I found curbside parking about a block away from the shop. I knew it was ahead of me by the GPS coordinates and the addresses on the buildings but had yet to see it. The next photo shows the exterior of the shop – its curbside view that I saw as I walked up the street to it. The yellow/butterscotch stucco and the red awning give it a bit of a California appearance. It was not at all what I was expecting to see when I walked up. In my mind it was a very different place than what was in front of me. The window display included pipes, posters, photos and tobacco. A bonus was the smell of pipe smoke in the air around the shop. The gentleman in the photo was smoking a nice Virginia in what appeared to be a small Dunhill billiard. He was sipping coffee and smoking while have a conversation with a friend. They were so engaged in their talk that we slipped by them without any notice. The doorway to the shop is on the right side of the photo and enters the interior at an angle.

Upon entering the shop a pipeman’s dream unfolded before my eyes. The next photo shows what I saw. Down the right side of the store there were a variety of displays of pipes of many shapes and brands. These were held in both display cases and on wall mounts. Each display was well lit and easily accessible for a shopper to view and fondle. There was also a small humidor just inside the door that housed a small selection of Cuban cigars. I also noticed in the back of the shop a larger walk in humidor. Not being a cigar aficionado I did not make it back to the humidor. I was immediately preoccupied with the pipe displays.

However, the website has a great photo of the inside of the humidor. I have included that picture for those of you who enjoy a good cigar. The humidor certainly is well stocked with a wide range of cigars.

The website labels this photo as the non-Cuban cigars. While I am not certain of that I do see there that the shop carries a wide range of Cuban, Nicaraguan, Dominican and Honduran cigars. This range of cigar brands and labels will provide something for every cigar smoker. I think that the next time I am in Edmonton I will have spend some time in the humidor and see what is available. But this time around I was there for a pipe visit.

I continued to look over the display cases on the right side of the shop and part of the left side as well and saw a wide range of smoking accessories – humidors of all shapes and sizes, lighters of various makes and prices, pipe bags, cigar cases, cigar cutters and the like. The variety of choices offered is quite impressive. I was not in the market for any of the items but had I been they would have been able to deliver. Burlington on Whyte is the exclusive Dunhill retailer for Edmonton so they carry a broad range of Dunhill products. They had Dunhill pipe bags, tampers, ashtrays, cigar cases etc. I could have spent several hours looking over the accessories but that also was not for this trip.

Chris Hansen (pictured to the left) is the proprietor of the shop and it was a pleasure to visit with him and talk about pipes and tobaccos. He is a knowledgeable pipeman who also blends some, if not all, of the tobaccos that the shop sells. I had an enjoyable visit with him, while my daughter patiently waited in the wings. I think I could have talked for a lot longer if I had been alone and not cognizant of her desire to see other shops on the Avenue. As it was I brought our conversation up a bit short and asked Chris if he had estates for sale. He answered with an affirmative and brought out some display cases with estate pipes for sale. He laid them on the counter on the left side of the shop. I went through these pipes carefully hoping to find one that caught my fancy. I find that the longer I am refurbishing pipes the pickier I have become so it is always harder to find a pipe that calls out to me. This was the case that day as well. There were several older GBD’s that came close to hooking me but nothing that demanded my cash outlay.

The wall behind the left side counter was lined with shelves of tins and jars of tobacco. There were also the obligatory rolling papers and pipe cleaners present. But my eye was drawn to jars of shop blends that occupied the shelves. I rarely buy tins of tobacco in pipe shops here in Canada as the cost is prohibitive – a 50 gram tin often is in the $28 to $30 range and sometimes even more costly. Because of this I try to purchase the bulk or house blends to try. This is especially the case when I come across a shop that advertises that it blends its own tobaccos.

I explained to Chris what I kind of tobaccos I smoked and he immediately suggested several of their blends that might interest me. Since I am predominantly a Virginia Perique smoker with an occasional foray into the world of English and Oriental tobaccos there were several that might work for me. He brought down the jars of Virginia Perique blends along a few English and Orientals ones as well. I opened each jar, talked with him about the makeup of the blends and enjoyed the smells of each tobacco. I felt like a kid in a candy shop. The prices were similar to those here in Vancouver, minus some of the taxes that are added at the till. I paid $18.40 for the ounce (thanks for the correction Aaron), although it is going up approximately $2.50-$3 per ounce within the next few weeks. This was due to a federal excise tax increase. The blend I purchased was Montego Bay, a Virginia that seems to have a little Perique for spice. There are also several other notes that come through the bouquet of smells that greet you when you inhale the aromas from the jar and bag. The website says it has some herbal additions to add to the sweetness of the Virginias. From the look of the blend it appears that there is at least a little Deer Tongue in the mix. It is a cool and flavourful smoking blend and certainly one that I will purchase again.

About mid-conversation an employee entered the shop and Chris went to the office. From the website I had remembered seeing his photo. We talked a bit but I failed to get his name. For that I apologize. Upon returning home I looked up the site and found that his name was Cody (pictured to left).

Cody was kind enough to pose for the photo below with his pipe in his mouth. Sadly it was unlit as we are not allowed to smoke in the tobacco shops in Canada these days. But as I walked through the shop and took in the ambience of the place I could easily see how that would have been a part of the history of this shop. I can almost smell the pipes and hear the conversation as pipemen sat in the back of the shop chatting and puffing while enjoying the fellowship of the pipe. Too bad we have lost those days.

From the website I learned that last year 2012 and again this year, 2013, the shop brought in predrilled briar blocks for a pipe carving contest. I looked through the webpage of the different pipes that had been carved by patrons of the shop. There were some well carved pipes in the photos. The blocks of briar looked to have been very nicely grained and clean. So while I was there I asked about the availability of the blocks and was shown a box of predrilled blocks with acrylic stem blanks. In speaking to Chris I found out that these came from Brigham. I am still curious as to who supplies them for Brigham. Chris only said that Brigham Canada sold them to him and could give me no more information.

With my daughter ready to move on and take in the sites of Whyte Avenue I gathered my purchases and made my way to the till. I paid my bill and took the bag of bounty that I paid for and headed to the street. When I got to the place we were staying later that evening I took the photo below to show my haul from the shop – a package of pipe cleaners (never have enough), an ounce of Montego Bay, a predrilled briar block and the business card.

If you live in Edmonton and have not been to this shop or you find yourself in town on a visit or business I can only say that it is well worth visiting Burlington on Whyte Tobacconist. The shop blends the ambience of an old tobacconist with an edginess of a new generation of pipemen. The friendly staff, wide selection of tobaccos, pipes and cigars makes it a spot that I will visit each time I am in town. Thanks Chris and staff for providing this great place for pipe and cigar smokers to visit and enjoy.

rebornpipes

reclaiming old and worn estate pipes

Tag Archives: Pipe Shops

A Great Visit to Burlington on Whyte Tobacconist Edmonton, Alberta

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