2016 POTD Thread Archive

[Whyemier]

And...you made the pipe holder too I surmise???

 

[intjonmiller]

And...you made the pipe holder too I surmise???

That's a billiard, isn't it?

 

[MikeWi]

That's a billiard, isn't it?

I'll have to look up pipe shapes, but as I recall from my pipe forum days, that too short and too tall for a billiard, and they aren't typically flat-sided. OTH, I don't know what to call it! LOL
Us pipe smokers seem to be a dying breed...

 

[intjonmiller]

I'm not a pipe smoker, but in 2003 my grandmother had a renter skip town and leave behind all sorts of belonging, including a suitcase full of pipes. 134 of them, if memory serves. I had fun researching them and gently cleaning them up (just enough to be more presentable, leaving any desired restoration to others) and then selling them on eBay. Savinelli, Castello, Dunhill, Charatan, and many others including some absolute works of art from a Scandinavian maker whose name now escapes me. Apples and Billiards and Bulldogs and Calabashes (seems awkward when pluralized) and so many others. It was fun. And I really didn't mind the extra $3000+ that I got from the lot (with some expenses along the way, including the Harbor Freight bench grinder I used to lightly buff them, and which I still have).

In the last 16 years I have sold a lot of things on eBay in many categories, but the pipe collectors were the most enjoyable group I dealt with. By comparison I wouldn't sell another vinyl record or toy train for most any price, because those groups really were terrible, judging by the experiences I had.

 

[mattthemuppet2]

Bill stopped by today to see if I had a 6x6 timber he could borrow. Found a rough sawn 8 foot one up by the sawmill, then proceeded to load it in his Tesla, It fit with the hatch closed.


Greg

that must have been the fastest piece of 6x6 in the whole of Canada

Finally finished up my drill press treadmill motor conversion, just waiting on some 10A fuses to give it a proper spin

 

[Charles Spencer]

And...you made the pipe holder too I surmise???

Before I retired I made that at my office from a wire coat hanger. I also kept a rack of pipes on the shelf behind my desk.

That's a billiard, isn't it?

It's a panel, which is a billiard with flat sides.

 

[NCjeeper]

I got it unloaded and in the shop today. Its going to need a good cleaning before I do anything with it.

 

[MikeWi]

I'm not a pipe smoker, but in 2003 my grandmother had a renter skip town and leave behind all sorts of belonging, including a suitcase full of pipes. 134 of them, if memory serves. I had fun researching them and gently cleaning them up (just enough to be more presentable, leaving any desired restoration to others) and then selling them on eBay. Savinelli, Castello, Dunhill, Charatan, and many others including some absolute works of art from a Scandinavian maker whose name now escapes me. Apples and Billiards and Bulldogs and Calabashes (seems awkward when pluralized) and so many others. It was fun. And I really didn't mind the extra $3000+ that I got from the lot (with some expenses along the way, including the Harbor Freight bench grinder I used to lightly buff them, and which I still have).

In the last 16 years I have sold a lot of things on eBay in many categories, but the pipe collectors were the most enjoyable group I dealt with. By comparison I wouldn't sell another vinyl record or toy train for most any price, because those groups really were terrible, judging by the experiences I had.

Nice! I wonder if it was a Bjorn? Update to the billiard question: As good as I can tell it would be considered a paneled billiard, so you're right after all!

 

[intjonmiller]

Bjorn sounds familiar but I'm remembering the name being longer and more complicated.

I had several and they sold for at least as much as any others, with one going at least $100 higher than anything else in the set. I can still picture the form and tone, more than a decade later.

I would always watch the end of the auctions, refreshing every 5-10 seconds for the last few minutes when the best action always happened. That most expensive one went back and forth between two bidders, both of whom I had sold to before. It was kind of tense. It sounds cliche with all the clickbait headlines these days but what happened next was absolutely amazing. The winner paid immediately and sent me a message asking me to ship it to the guy who lost. He wished the other guy hadn't been so aggressive as he'd been planning on buying it for him anyway, but as a surprise. He said the guy had been down on his luck for a while and now his wife was in the hospital, or something along those lines, and he knew this would cheer him up. If memory serves it was almost $500. Good guy.

I would list a few each night, with the selection being varied enough to not compete with myself. That also meant that I could ship a few at a time. Well, at one point I messed up and sent a $50 pipe to a guy who won and paid for a $300 pipe, and vice-versa. Instead of complaining to me, or just giving me negative feedback without a chance to refund or anything like that as I experienced with those other groups I mentioned, these two just contacted each other and sorted it out themselves, and left me positive feedback before even letting me know what had happened. Seriously, just a great group and I was sad when I ran out of pipes to sell, only partly because of the revenue. I really enjoyed all of my interactions with them. Hard to identify many other groups where that has been the case.

 

[chevydyl]

damn jeeper, that's an oldie, nice score