Old estate Kaywoodie straight pot

Mostly a picture post here of a cute little Kaywoodie straight pot.  It's got a couple scratches and scuffs, but for the most part it cleaned up nicely compared to how it looked when we first pulled it out of the estate box!

old Kaywoodie straight pot, just under 6 inches long

Some scratches on the rim of the Kaywoodie

the Kaywoodie stinger is intact and even de-grimed!

scuffs on the bowl, with 42 stamped on the right side of the shank

main stamp on left of shank Kaywoodie "600" Imported briar

chamber reamed and salt-alcohol soaked, centered draft hole

This cute little pipe is just not for me, alas.  I find myself reaching for the bent pipes much more than straights, and when I cradle this little Kaywoodie it just doesn't quite feel right to me.  I'm working on finding it a good loving home.

Hearth & Home Obsidian in the estate Wally Frank

I have been slowly and incrementally cleaning the estate Wally Frank more ... in between almost-daily smokes in it, of course.  I pretty much smoked an entire two ounce tin of C&D Red Odessa in it, and now that the Red Odessa has run out, I've tried C&D Odessa (original version) and Hearth & Home's Obsidian.  Since I tried a bowl of the H&H Obsidian, that is what has been loaded in it lately, and today is no exception:

estate Wally Frank pipe, with the stem closer to black

discoloration cleaned off the rim of the estate Wally Frank

The Wally Frank pipe is getting prettier as I get it cleaner, and I do love shining it up with the scrap denim and a bit of olive oil.  Oh yeah, that is my new pipe lighter - a Xikar Resource with built-in pipe tools.  Hubby wants one now too, I believe.

A couple notes about H&H Obsidian ... first of all, if you have not tried it, get some.  This is the polar opposite of my codger-style burley blends.  It's a complex blend of four black tobaccos: stoved Virginia, black cavendish, latakia, and perique cut chunky (rough) ... which makes it a bit of a botch to get lit and keep lit but that may be the point.  I get the most intense bursts of flavor the moment it goes out, so I am really not minding the many MANY relights involved in each bowlful.  While I don't have the experience to describe the tastes without looking things up, it has been educational to try to figure out what my senses are picking up.  I've smoked some straight black cavendish, so I do recognize that wonderful smoothness.  The description of stoved Virginia matches the wonderful bursts of sweetness.  Now I need to distinguish between latakia and perique as I don't seem to get the "peppery" flavor others do.  All four tobaccos work together harmoniously like my favorite Oak Ridge Boys tunes.

smoking the last bowl of Boswell No-Bite Delight in the caramel apple

Now, for the sort-of sad news: the bag of Boswell No-Bite Delight is gone.  Hubby snapped a pic of me smoking the last full bowl in the caramel apple pipe - not so much to commemorate the event but because I didn't have a picture of this pipe yet.

The chocolate egg pipe and a new egg

So I have a pipe that I call "the chocolate egg".  Not surprisingly, it is a bent egg shape that I smoke my chocolate flavored tobaccos in - plus it just sounds cute.  The nickname was not planned ... I had the new pipe a little over three weeks ago and I had chocolate tobacco (MacBaren's Honey & Chocolate at the time).  I had picked this one out because it was a nice light-colored pipe, listed as a natural finish.  It does not look light-colored any more!

Smoking Boswell Chocolate Cream in my chocolate egg

That natural finish apparently means no stain and no sealant to keep it light colored, and as a result of smoking it pretty much daily for over three weeks it now looks chocolate-colored!  Between finishing the sample bag of bulk Honey & Chocolate we bought locally and receiving the Boswell flavored aromatics, it should surprise exactly no one that the Boswell chocolate has been what this pipe has burned the most so far.  Alas, the end is nigh for my two ounce bag of the Boswell chocolate (as well as the No-Bite Delight).  That will require either another phone call to Boswell's or opening the vacuum-sealed one pound bag of the MacB Honey & Chocolate.  Difficult decision!

Another difficult decision will be what I want to smoke in my new bent egg with its natural finish.  The big brown truck brought me another box, and I have a new pipe!  Here the two eggs are side-by-side, with the new one not even (olive) oiled yet.

Before and after 3-4 weeks briar pipes coloring

I could see the chocolate egg was darkening up with use - coloring like a meerschaum even! - but until I got the new one today I hadn't realized just how dark it is getting.  As we used to say in high school, "Cool beans!"

Old Hirschl & Bendheim Irvin S. Cobb corncob pipe

Along with posting here yesterday about the old estate box corncob pipe, I also went to a forum that has cob fans for help identifying the marked-up sticker on my pipe (PipeSmokersForum).  It didn't take long to get the proper spelling of the first name and what the second name is, which then made Googling up info a WHOLE LOT easier!  The manufacturer's name was Hirschl & Bendheim, and they went out of business during the 1980s, although the Irvin S. Cobb line of corncob pipes is apparently still made by Missouri Meerschaum now, and can even be bought to this day at Rite-Aids and CVS stores in some places.

As I loaded up another bowl of Russ O's Angler's Dream, a codger-style tribute burley blend with just enough cinnamon in it to totally WOW me, I decided to snap a few more pics of this old H&B Cobb.

H&B cob with bag of tobacco

the marked-up H&B Irvin S. Cobb sticker

Excellent smoke: Angler's Dream tobacco in the old H&B cob

I am really loving this Angler's Dream burley blend!  I suspect that bag that was sent as an "extra" in a tobacco trade will not last long.  The dash of cinnamon isn't enough to overwhelm the burley, just enough to accent and give it a nice room note.  This smokes just as easy as any codger blend I currently have in briar as well as corncob ... but the cob just brings out an extra little shine to it.  I'm on my fourth bowl of it in about 24 hours, and I even took time out to sleep!

Larger estate corncob pipe

For one reason or another, I cannot salt-and-alcohol the ghost out of some of thee estate pipes from the first large box.  One has a meer-lined bowl, two are obviously glued, one is taped, and a couple I can't get the stems off ... and two are corncob pipes.  The smaller-bowled corncob is a Missouri Meerschaum one, but the larger is not and I am having trouble reading the sticker on the bottom of it.

Sticker on bottom of estate cob pipe

The Washington, Missouri USA part is easy to read, but the maker's name isn't.  I thought the first name was Hirschil, but Google yielded no results.  I am hoping someone recognizes the sticker and/or logo as I am curious.

For the record, this cob pipe smokes a bowl of Carter Hall so easy!  The previous owner must not have been too fond of this one, since the ghost in all his pipes only was noticeable for the initial bowl.