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…