Monday, June 25, 2007

54 Trademark joins the ranks!


I just finished a bowl of Wessex burley slices in a new-to-me estate Castello Trademark 4K Rhodesian, model 54 with a #5 bit, complete with rhinestone insert. After a busy weekend a monday off seemed appropriate and this morning was spent on the back patio with the sunshine just beginning to filter through the oaks, illuminating the frolicking antics of a half dozen squirrels and numerous songbirds. A soft breeze was washing through the trees and carrying the scents of the tree covered hillside, baked from the recent summer heat, and it mingled with the fragrant dew covered flower garden at my feet. The combined smells melded beautifully with the earthy burley smoke creating an ethereal incense. With a cup of black coffee, the pipe and the lively hillside brought me out of my tired post slumber lethargy and snapped me back into the focus I held the previous afternoon.

This pipe was the culmination of a long thought out and bothered over process in which I would finally begin a micro collection within my collection, the Bulldog/Rhodesian shapes. I have a wonderful Castello Old Antiquari straight dog with stick bit, but a single pipe is not a collection. I have been studiously pouring over countless photographs of various renditions of these shapes and have come to love those that bear an overly wide bowl, large face and relatively narrow and long 1/8 to 1/4 bent shank. I’ve recently had my eye on several pipes and missed out on them for various reasons, and that had me a bit edgy. I saw a stunning Hedegaard OP1 Rhodesian on thepiperack.com and while pouring over several days worth of auctions in the name of being sure the OP1 was the one, it disappeared. Foolish mistake! As gorgeous as it was I should have just snapped it up, but being of a limited budget and wanting to be sure it was “THE” pipe to buy (there wouldn’t be a second for a while) I hesitated and another lucky collector is now undoubtedly enjoying it. Shortly thereafter I placed bids on a couple of pipes over the next few days and was sniped, so when the end of the week rolled around, as I said, I was a bit on edge over the whole thing.

I figured I’d just let the whole idea go and wait until something caught my eye so as to not force a purchase that I’d later regret, and that was pretty much my mindset when I’d called my brother to see if he wanted to join me at the Sunday pipe club meeting. We agreed to go together and once it was decided and I knew I’d be going (Sundays can be so last minute when you have a big family) I went through my usual routine of checking out Second Hand Smokes, an EBay store run by the Sacramento Pipe Collectors Assembly founder and host, Gary Malmberg. Gary graciously hosts the twice monthly meetings in his home and is quite the generous host, allowing members to freely pour over his stock of fine estate pipes. I usually pick out several listed on his site that interest me and make an effort to get ahold of them, learn from them, and learn from Gary. Just caressing these pipes will educate you in a way that reading about them and viewing them on a computer monitor can’t, and these meetings have been like seminars to my novice but ambitious idea of collecting.

So in pouring over his site for the first time in a while I spy a familiar shape, wide bowl, large face, elegantly shaped shank and stem. Hmmm. You can never really tell by the pictures, but it looked very much like what I’d been searching for and I was kind of amazed at myself for not noticing it sooner. Upon examining the pipe in person I was both thrilled and relieved because it was simply gorgeous! The pipe is quite elegant, feels perfect in the hand, has the sweetest little swept back wide mouthpiece and is very, very clean. I believe the transaction took all of 30 seconds to complete, no fuss, no muss, and I’m supremely pleased with it!

At the meting a few lovely examples were filed away in the old memory bank for future reference including a sweet blasted billiard with stick bit carved by Joel Shapiro (his pipes are getting better and better and the engineering is fantastic) and a really cool elephants foot by Tonni Nielsen. As I said earlier, Quite focused I was yesterday afternoon on the possibilities of future collecting, and on cloud nine with my new aquisition.

So now it’s day one, the pipe will get smoked a couple of times today and then take it’s new resting place in the circular 2 tiered rack…In front, where I can eyeball it.

4 comments:

ZuluCollector said...

Great post! One to which many pipe collectors can relate. I envy you the pleasure of habitual temptation at your Pipe Assembly. Gary is a great guy; I've bought some pieces from him and have always been satisfied.

There is something special, indeed, about Castellos. They are just smoking machines, and when you find one that is right for you, there's nothing better.

Like you, I love the dawg and the squat dawg in particular. Yours looks terrific.

Congratulations on a fine new piece for your collection!

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Nadia said...

Good posting........thanks for sharing.

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