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 ... MORE

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 ... MORE

Visit My Collection
Or click the logo on the right to see a table of each brand.

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.

An empty cell indicates the collection has no example of that shape and color. If you have a pipe you are willing to part with that will fill in an empty cell, please get in touch.

All pipes in the collection ... MORE

Pipes for Sale or Trade

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

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 ... MORE

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Join the pipeUpdate!

I send out e-mails once in a while to interested folks to keep them up to date on what's happening with the pipe and these pages. If you would like to get them just fill in your e-mail address in the "topica" box above - where it says "your email" - and click the "Join" button. You will immediately receive a confirmation e-mail, to which you need only reply (or click on the link within the message) to be instantly added to the list. That's all!

(Regarding the succeeding Topica registration prompt: Topica does encourage registration and is very proud of the fact that 70% of subscribers do register, but please note that Topica does not require subscribers to register, nor is registration forced.)

I promise I won't bedevil you with messages (four in a year's time is the most I have ever sent) and, in the more than four years I have used it, Topica has completely protected the identities of subscribers and does not send advertisements or messages except for registration confirmations.

Site Map

Although this site has been validated as XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS compliant with W3C standards throughout (except for the Flash Slide Shows), 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!

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.

I am dismayed at the over-simplification of the press in reporting the US Surgeon General's findings. Millions of people believe the famous Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health in 1964 but never heard about the mortality chart on page 85 which clearly shows that pipe smokers outlive non-smokers by an average of two years!

I am even more dismayed at the intellectual dishonesty of the U.S. Surgeon General in his 2006 report, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: "...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...." (p. 17) 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." Disgraceful!
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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:

1. develop a "cake" instead of having pyrolytic graphite bowl liners.

2. have no air-filled insulating chambers between the bowl and the cake.

3. have a more pronounced countersink because the mouthpiece has a bevel from the mouthpiece face to the tenon instead of an "o"-ring seal on the tenon.

The side of the bowl opposite the airhole entrance is the front or face of the pipe, the side of the bowl rising perpendicular to the shank is the back or rear, and the sides are right or left in reference to the pipe held  ... MORE