Questions You Thought Were Too Dumb to Ask (Pipes Edition)

[NWSmoke]

Quality materials, higher quality standards, and finish are most likely your biggest differences. Let's look at a couple pipes and compare.

Since both of my Grabows are old, lets compare those to two of my old Savinelli's.

The top pipe is a Grabow Lark and the bottom is a Crown Duke (I really need to clean both the stems again). Both are good smokers.

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Take is apart and look at the stem and you will see they cranked these out. The hole in the stem is off center. The metal on the stem itself is cheap tin or aluminum with teeth in the middle to grip the tenon.

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The Crown Duke has a bit better, but similarly cheap metal tenon. If you look closely at the pipe, the finish they used is starting to spider web.


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I will cover the Savinelli's in the next post due to pic limitation.

Savinelli's are mass produced pipes too, but the briar is generally a bit nicer. Better quality materials are used. A bit more attention to detail.

The top pipe is a Savinelli Deluxe the bottom Pipe is a Roma.

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Compare the tenon and materials to that used on the Grabow.

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Look at the grain of the briar itself.

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Just for giggles, let's look at a reletively new Savinelli. This is my Alligator 310.


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When you get down to it, pipes are tools. Tools for smoking tobacco, but still tools. You can buy Harbor Freight, Craftsman, or Snap-On.

Thank you sir for the run down. Some of this I knew or suspected, but this was a great explanation. I love your tool break down as that I can understand. Harbor freight tools you end up fighting with but yet might be able to get the job done with; I assume this would be basket pipes. Snap on are beautiful pieces but I'd say beyond diminishment of returns. I still must ask though how does all this come down to smoking tobacco? I get that some pipes have more attention to detail, cleaner pieces of briar, but when it comes to getting the job done (asthetics and "quality" aside), is a grabow or brog going to be any different than a $100 pipe?