Blog by Dal Stanton

I completed the first Christmas CW project by repurposing an Italian Permofilter rusticated bowl and mounting it on a Warden stem.  It is to be a gift for my son, Josiah, who came to Bulgaria from St. Louis to celebrate Christmas in Sofia, Bulgaria, with Mom and Dad!  Josiah’s Churchwarden came out well!Our daughter, Johanna, also has come to Bulgaria for Christmas.  She and her husband, Niko, arrived first and so my work fashioning a CW as a Christmas gift for Niko is a bit clandestine trying to keep it a secret until Christmas Day!  Niko hasn’t been easy to figure out for a pipe gift!  I was first going to give him a sculpted Meerschaum because I knew he had one before – a cheaper one that disintegrated in his hand while smoking it.  Yet, after he arrived, he saw that I was working…

Blog by Dal Stanton

One of the advantages of having ‘The Pipe Steward’ in the immediate family is that there’s a very good probability that his gifting patterns might reflect one of his favorite pastimes – restoring pipes!  Over the years, it has given me great joy to gift my loved ones – sons and daughters(!), with pipes that I’ve restored.  There are at least two reasons for this.  First, they receive a beautiful pipe which has been given the TLC that brings it again to a pristine condition – often better than new!  They can enjoy the composite beauty of its shape, grain formations and hues.  Additionally, understanding a pipe’s story through the research and write-up that accompanies each recommissioned pipe adds to the overall appreciation for the pipe.  The pipe itself is the first part of a growing legacy.  Secondly, the fact that the gift has passed through…

Blog by Dal Stanton

The story begins when I first laid my eyes on this pipe.  It was when the box containing the ‘French Lot of 50’ arrived here in Sofia, Bulgaria, from Paris, and oh my – talk about excitement!  I was alerted to this online Lot by Romanian pipe man friend, Codruț (aka: Piper O’Beard), who had previously become the steward of an L. J. Peretti Oom Paul I had restored. I carefully and slowly unwrapped each pipe, relishing each moment. I had seen the pipes in a pile displayed by the seller on France’s eBay.  Interestingly, when I unwrapped the ‘Gold Crown Giant Bent Billiard’ now on my worktable, I went back and looked at the eBay ‘pile’ picture with the question, how could I have missed this?  I was attracted to this French Lot because of the many horn stems and several very uniquely shaped pipes…

Blog by Dal Stanton

The Butz Choquin Camargue came to me via an antique store in St. Louis, Missouri.  Last December, my son Josiah, who was studying there, and now currently works there, came upon this lot for sale in an antique store.  He did the right thing – he called…, rather, he texted his father in Bulgaria with pictures asking the question, ‘What do you think, Dad?’  We didn’t think too long about the purchase and split the cost for the St. Louis Lot of 26.  Why did we split?  The jumbo French Champion Church Warden in the center of the picture below was to be my Christmas gift from Josiah and so he paid that part of this very nice trove of pipes he found!  Many of the pipes of the St. Louis Lot of 26 are still available in ‘For “Pipe Dreamer” Only!’ online collection.  Pipe men…

Blog by Dal Stanton

Where I acquired this Harvey rusticated Dublin is not a mystery.  The Bulgarian coastal city of Burgas, on the main walking street near the beach, I found the Dublin in the ‘wild’ along with 4 other pipes I acquired.  One of my favorite things to do is to go ‘pipe picking’ wherever in the world my path takes me.  My wife and I were on the Black Sea Coast for our annual summer R&R and one day, we peeled ourselves away from the beach and strolled the favorite center-city walking street where a second-hand shop of antiques became the venue of this pipe picking expedition.

The pipes were easily found waiting for me in a copper pot.  After it was all done, negotiations were favorable and along with the Harvey Dublin, I brought home with me an Oldo Bruyere Billiard, Butz Choquin Supermate 1596 Panel…