Heart breaker

[Pugsley]

How did you get interested in collecting these? It's an interesting story about the JB pipes. Are you going to make an offer on that one and restore it?

Some years back I bought a Bessai Special X on Ebay because I liked the shape. It reminded me of some of the Sixten Ivarsson pipes produced in the early 60's. At the time I was smoking mostly machine made pipes from Savinelli, Stanwell and others. The smoking qualities of that Bessai were so far beyond anything I had at the time that I decided to seek out more of his pipes. I now own half a dozen of them, and though some are painfully unattractive, they are all terrific smokers. That said, I have purchased a few that turned out to be made, or at least finished, by his son Herb after the old man passed. Many of those were purchased as unfinished bowls from European manufacturers and they are not nearly the same quality as pipes made by John. To my knowledge, none of them were marked "Special" although for a time Herb continued to use the original "John Bessai" stamps on them. I won't be bidding on the pipe I linked to as it's far beyond my skill level to restore a pipe in such condition. This one, however, I will be bidding on.

John Bessai Square Shanked Billiard Shaped Pipe Pipestud | eBay