I was browsing EBay this morning and came across a group of Dunhill pipes that were being sold individually by the same seller. There are four pipes all being sold at strangely high prices with several bidders. All of them obviously came from the same pipe smoker. The three below are the worst of the lot. The last of the foursome is probably redeemable with a light topping and reshaping of the rim. These three would take quite a lot of work. The incredible thing to my mind is the amount of damage caused to all of them. I look at them with sadness and wonder at the person who would do that to that many pipes. Personally I would think that if I had one pipe sustain that damage I would change my habits. Not so with the pipe smoker of this trio, all nice lovats. If you look at the pictures below you will see that all three have a burn in pretty much the same spot. The sacrifice of briar to the flame is absolutely unnecessary.

From my experience this kind of burn is caused by repeatedly using a torch lighter and carelessness in directing the flame into the bowl. Repeatedly lighting the pipe in the same way from the same angle produces the results visible in these photos. I know that they are Dunhill’s and odds are they were not cheap pipes. But they are still selling on EBay at a price that a similarly burnt no name or low name pipe would never see.

I have repaired a lot of burned rims and damaged rims but these seem so unnecessary to me. Ah well I won’t be bidding on them. All three would need a serious topping to bring them to even close to pristine condition and would also ruin their value to collectors. Why buy them at all? I suppose some folks would fall under the spell of the white dot or maybe they are just going for the well kept stems.