Welcome to www.thepipe.info

Everything there is to know about the pipe, THE SMOKE, and Venturi pipes!

History of the pipe

I have smoked a pipe for over 50 years off and on. In 1997, I took it in my head to begin collecting a specific kind of pipe that was manufactured from 1963 to about 1975. The pipes were imprinted with three different brand names: the pipe, THE SMOKE, and Venturi. In addition there were some the pipe - MADE IN ENGLAND. Fortunately for me, nearly all pipe smokers dislike the way these pipes smoke and so it has not been too expensive to develop a collection of these plastic pipes with pyrolytic graphite bowl liners. I was lucky enough to buy
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Visit My Collection

(Or click the logo below to see a table of each brand.)

Each individual pipe in the collection is checked in the tables and is linked from the check to that pipe's individual page where you can read its story. Fashion Stripe pipes have a number identifying the pattern of stripes instead of a check.

Multiple checks in a cell indicate that more than one of that shape/color are in the collection because of different striping, packaging or other variation.
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Missing Exemplars

I am missing a few the pipe color/shape combinations. If you have one of these and would like to help me out, pick any pipe (except one labeled "NA") from the Pipes for Sale or Trade page or let me know your price!

Pipes for Sale or Trade

If you happen to have a pipe to trade for or would like to buy one of these, please get in touch!

Click the price in the table to see the pipe. "TO" means the pipe is for trade only and is not for sale. Likewise "NA" indicates the pipe is neither for sale nor trade, probably for sentimental reasons. If there is more than one indicator in a cell, each is for a different pipe.

All of the pipe, THE SMOKE and Venturi pipes for sale are on these tables with ordering information.

Pipes Sold

I have sold and traded some of my pipes. I am not in the pipe business. I sell pipes I don't need for the collection for one reason or another and I don't want to smoke myself. It also provides an opportunity for those who visit this page and want to try one of these things without taking the time and effort to search one out on their own.

Here are they are, in the order of departure left to right. If you'd like to get one for yourself, take a look at the Pipes for Sale or Trade page and see if there's one there for you.

Anatomy of the pipe

The shell of a the pipe was manufactured of compression molded phenolic resin, more commonly known as Bakelite, and even more commonly known as plastic. The bowl was lined with pyrolytic graphite.

Here are a couple of diagrams showing the terms used to describe the parts of the pipe. Generally, these terms are applicable to all pipes, the only differences being that pipes made of other materials:

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Valuing the pipe

For those of you reading this who are contemplating the pipe as an investment, be warned: you will not make a profit on these pipes. Because so many confirmed briar and meerschaum smokers are not fond of the pipe, it is unlikely ever to have a great following in the collectibles market. Most pipe smokers and dealers consider these things next to worthless. I know of only five substantial collections of the pipe and only one of those (mine) is held by someone who smokes only the pipe and has no other pipe collecting
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Links of Interest to Smokers

This is not an exhaustive list of all the thousands of pipe smoking sites on the web, but some sites I visit regularly and a couple of omnibus sites which do provide many links to other smoking sites.

North American Society of Pipe
Collectors

Pipes Digest

Cornell & Dielh Tobacco

Cleaning the pipe

One of the great advantages of the pipe is that it is made of a plastic shell with a bowl liner of pyrolytic graphite. This means that, unlike briar pipes, it is indifferent to water. The advertising says that it can be put in a dishwasher for cleaning. I have never tried this, preferring a more thorough yet gentle cleaning method. If you have a the pipe that you purchased used or if you have been careless running a pipe cleaner through the pipe and wiping out the bowl with a paper towel after each smoke, you may find it necessary to take firmer measures to return it to return it to its original smoking properties.

The first eight steps below will be necessary; we can only hope that nine through eleven will not.

Smoke the pipe while you read this to accelerate the process and soften the cake somewhat. If you are concerned about sterilizing the pipe before smoking it, run a pipe cleaner soaked in Rubbing Alcohol through the mouthpiece first. Do not yield to the temptation to soak the mouthpiece in alcohol, it may discolor and damage the mouthpiece.

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Smoking & Health

See mortality chart on page 85 of the Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health (1964) which clearly shows that pipe smokers outlive non-smokers by an average of two years!

See "Methodological Issues" on page 17 of The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke (2006): "...the authors of this Surgeon General’s report used this methodology to summarize the available data when deemed appropriate and useful, even while recognizing that the uncertainty around the meta- analytic estimates may exceed the uncertainty indicated by conventional statistical indices...." In plain English that means, "The statistical method we used is no good, but we could get the results we wanted by doing it this way."

In short, every Surgeon General's Report, every CDC and EPA pronouncement, and every news report about smoking and health is an insane extrapolation from shoddy statistics. If you don't believe me, see Snowdon, Christopher. Velvet Glove, Iron Fist: A History of Anti-Smoking. Little Dice, 2009 for a good read and a well-researched account of the last 500 years of anti-smoking campaigns, including the current hysteria.

Using this Site

Although this site has been validated as XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS compliant with W3C standards throughout (except for the Flash Slide Shows and some JavaScript), these pages may not display correctly on your equipment.

If you want to get the full impact of the site, you may want to set your display for 1024x768, use Internet Explorer 7 maximized, and enable JavaScript and Flash Player.

Or, if you don't want to bother with all that, you should be able to navigate pretty well from the site map .

Or you can just search for what you're interested in. See top right.

If the slide shows do not display properly, click this link to see the photos in the slide shows without enabling a Flash Player.

If you have done all that and things still don't appear to be working as they should, please let me know so I can try to make repairs.

Thanks for visiting—and your patience!