Directory of US Pipe Brands (2/3)

The Directory of US Pipe Brands is an attempt to gather the scattered record of American pipe production in one place; this page holds the second part of a three-part directory, covering ninety entries from Glamp to New Jersey Briar Pipe Co. Pipe making in America ran along two tracks: on one side, series-production factories in centers such as Jersey City, Brooklyn, and Chicago, along with dozens of their sub-brands; on the other, one-man workshops working weekends in a home garage. The entries below are brief and factual; brands for which only a name is on record are kept in the list, with the gaps clearly noted.

Brands

• Glamp — American pipe making known under the name Andrew Glamp. No further information is on record; only the maker's name is documented.

• Glen Court — The work of Glen Court, living in Hadley, Massachusetts. He marked his freehand pipes with the "G Court" stamp; he also produced pipes called Royal Court.

• Glenn Tinsky — Son of pipe maker Mark Tinsky, Glenn Tinsky began working in his father's workshop on a limited basis after graduating from culinary school, then formally joined the business. Most of his pipes carry the American Smoking Pipe Co. stamp; a smaller number are marked simply "G. Tinsky."

• GM Pipes — The brand of a maker known as Gregg. Stating he has worked for more than thirty-five years, the maker specializes in three-piece pipes and has spent twenty years experimenting with different wood species. In 2009 he released the two-piece GM Signature Series pipes made of bocote wood; this line also introduced a hand-carved "GM" stamp under the bowl.

• Gold Coast — One of several sub-lines of the Lee brand, appearing in at least one Pipes by Lee catalogue. It was initially known for a distinctive gold-plated band; later models left the mouthpieces unadorned.

• Golden Bull — A small tobacconist founded in 1969 in the Old Town district of San Diego. Owner Geoffrey made some of the pipes in his own garage, marking them with the "Golden Bull" stamp and hand-carving them. The shop later took the name Racine & Laramie; the name change took place in 1974. One Golden Bull example on record turns out to be a secondhand Ben Wade imported by Lane Limited, refurbished and rebranded.

• GRC Pipes — The brand of Darius Christian; his name appears in sources under various spellings such as Erch and Eruch. He started as a hobby in 1999 after buying a PIMO pipe kit, and turned into a small-scale producer with support from colleagues such as Trever Talbert and J.M. Boswell. He works alone, making classic shapes in the Danish line with vulcanite, cumberland, and acrylic mouthpieces. The maker he uses as a benchmark is Per Hansen of the S. Bang workshop. His grading runs from A down to G; the last two letters indicate secondary quality. The brand name was chosen in honor of the maker's wife.

• Hahn, Rick — Rick Hahn of California is recorded as a name new to pipe making. He uses Greek briar obtained from JH Lowe & Co., imported in 1995 by Tim West; his mouthpieces are Italian vulcanite, and his pipes are finished with carnauba wax.

• Hale — The pipes of Rocky Hale of Mesa, Arizona. Records describe him as a locally known maker without further detail on his work.

• Hampton — Amateur maker Wade Hampton of Phoenix, Arizona. He trained under Horace DeJarnett. His stamp reads "Made by Wade" and "Handmade in Arizona," together with a serial number and date; his emblem is a stylized WH monogram.

• Harmon — Steve Harmon's pipes represent a playful approach rather than a claim to high craft. He made unusual, sometimes odd shapes, experimented with colored paints, and added colored acrylic ornaments to his pipes. Even so, most of his output stayed in light, natural tones that let the wood's grain show through. He allowed small flaws and rusticated the larger ones; some of his pipes show carved line networks covering the entire stummel. Records place him in the Henderson area of North Carolina; he was born May 4, 1960, and died suddenly.

• Hayes, Robert E. — A maker from Southport, North Carolina. He made pipes as a hobby for years before bringing his production up to a level he could sell. He sourced his briar from a well-known Danish maker; his engineering and rustication work were well regarded. His pipes were displayed on Cornell & Diehl's tables.

• Haywood — Irving "Scacy" Haywood, living in Glenarden near Washington, D.C., made decorative tobacco pipes throughout his life alongside work as an auto mechanic and photographer. He served on the Glenarden Municipal Council from 2007 to 2011. He was also known in music through Scacy and the Sound Service, an early funk and go-go band he formed in the late 1960s.

• Heisenberg — The brand of Jim Brown of Mooresville, North Carolina. He began production in 2014 under the name "Werner Heisenberg," using Mediterranean briar, olive wood, and European bog oak. Mouthpieces are hand-cut and made of vulcanite or acrylic resin; special woods and other mouthpiece materials are used on customer request.

• Heritage Pipes Inc. — Founded as a subsidiary of S. M. Frank & Co., the company was closed at the end of 1971 following the parent firm's decision to reposition its Kaywoodie brand toward higher quality. Its emblem was three small dots in red, white, and blue. Heritage Heirloom, Kaywoodie's top-tier line, was made in the 1960s and discontinued in 1970; the line was overseen by Stephen Ogdon, who came from Dunhill. According to accounts, only one in three hundred briar pieces was deemed worthy of this line, and the finest Para rubber was used for the mouthpieces.

• Herskovitz — Sandor Herskovitz, registered in Flushing, New York, is remembered for making and selling pipes in a public park in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Only isolated examples of his pipes are documented.

• Herter's — This outdoor and hunting supply company is thought to have had pipes made under its own name; the record does not go beyond this possibility.

• Hew Len Pipes — The brand of Jaden Hew Len, working in Wai'anae, Hawaii. No information is on record about production; only the maker's name and location are documented.

• Hialeah — Hialeah pipes were released before 1975 by Whitehall Products Co., then part of Helme Products. Whitehall was based in Wheeling, West Virginia; Helme was based in New Jersey. All known examples are made of Algerian briar.

• Hildebrand — Paul Hildebrand made freehand pipes in his workshop in Phoenix, Arizona. He also owned Pipe Makers Emporium, which for several years was the exclusive North American distributor of Algerian briar; most of the stock was later bought by Steve Norse of Vermont Freehand. He was a member of the Arizona Pipe Club and the Arizona Pipe Makers Society, and taught about three pipe-making courses a year. He made pipes for more than a decade and also handled restoration of estate and collection pipes. He passed away on June 29, 2024.

• Holcomb — Florida maker Mack H. Holcomb worked first in Hialeah, then settled in Sanford, where he retired. Whether he used a stamp on his pipes is unknown; at least one of his pipes is recorded as being in the Tom Dunn collection.

• Hollco International — This company in Chatsworth, California, was previously known as Hollco-Rohr. It acquired the Wally Frank company in 1969; around the same time it became the US importer of the Castello and Comoy's brands and the maker of several pipe lines, chief among them Pioneer.

• Howard — Tom Howard, a well-known comedian of the 1940s and 1950s, was a skilled pipe maker alongside his vaudeville and radio work. A 1947 Popular Mechanics article introduced him as "hobbyist of the month." Starting around 1939, in a workshop next to his home in Red Bank, New Jersey, he turned out a pipe roughly every three hours from bagged briar blocks and mouthpiece blanks. He also built scale-model ships, trains, and cannons.

• Hudson Universal Pipe Co. — An American firm that produced the Eagle, Excelsior, Harrington Park, and Hilex brands; records consist of no more than this brand list.

• Hugunin's Los Angeles — A tobacconist that operated in Los Angeles. A newspaper notice dated March 11, 1916, shows Harry L. Hugunin registering the business at 110 N. Spring Street; another notice from 1918 lists the shop under the name W.F. Ball as dealing in pipes and pipe repair, blended tobacco, and cigars. Records show the firm was founded in 1882 and continued at least until the late 1940s.

• Hyaac — Carver Abraham Hyaac (†) of Poland, Ohio. The record is limited to his name and location.

• Ideal Mfg. — A pipe maker founded in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania; details of its products are unknown.

• Imperati — The records about this maker are both scarce and contradictory. Imperati is described in some sources as a pipe maker with a shop in New York, in others as a maker working in Baltimore, in others as a craftsman supplying large New York shops such as Wilke, and in still others as a designer working mainly for Wally Frank; according to this last account he also prepared the firm's "pipe of the month" examples.

• Irrera — A pipe maker who worked in New York. No information is on record beyond his name and city.

• J. Arthur Pipes — A brand hand-carving its pipes from Algerian, Italian, or Greek briar. Mouthpieces are hand-cut from German cumberland or vulcanite. Its founder and founding date are not given in the records.

• J.B. Russell — A distribution company operating in North America, known for short as JBB. The workshops making pipes under its name are mostly Italian and French firms, one of which is Chacom. It had a privileged relationship with Sasieni and Charatan. The company was founded by a World War I colonel who opened tobacconists in London and Manhattan after his military service. After the founder's death in the 1930s, the business stayed in the family; it was bought by Daniel Blumenthal in 1970.

• Jack's Handmade Pipes — Jack Hamburg Jr. began making pipes as a hobby in 1988 with machinery he acquired from the Moss & Lowenhaupt factory in St. Louis. He works in Joliet, Illinois, producing mostly freehand pipes using Greek briar and lucite mouthpieces, and also does repair work.

• Jacobson-Hardy — A pipe maker who worked in Bennington, New Hampshire; he left no trace in the records beyond his name.

• Jandrew — The brand of J. Andrew Kovacs. He lived in the Arizona towns of Jerome and Cottonwood, and is said to have later moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Horace DeJarnett learned the fundamentals of pipe making over roughly a year at his workshop in northern Arizona (see DeJarnett Pipes).

• Jasper Co. — Pipes stamped with the brand name, the phrase "Imported Briar," and the address 104 W. 47th St., NYC. The firm does not appear to have been registered as a company in New York, does not appear to have trademarked its name, and does not appear to have advertised its pipes; nothing else is known about it for this reason.

• Jemelka — Jorg Jemelka co-founded The Briar Workshop in Vermont in 1976 together with Elliott Nachwalter, and appears to have stayed there until 1980. His real interest was pipe-making machinery and, in the long run, automation. Under a collaboration with Ehrlich's of Boston, the workshop acquired turn-of-the-century pipe-making machines; Jemelka converted these machines to produce exact copies of handmade pipes. This method is the main difference separating the workshop's Florida and Vermont branches. Nachwalter and Brad Pohlmann continued producing both series-production designs and individual handmade pipes. Jemelka advanced his automation goal further by earning a master's degree between 1980 and 1983.

• Jesse Jones — A maker who embraces the functionality, elegance, and durability of the classic English school, rarely venturing into abstract shapes. His aim is to keep handmade pipes in classic shapes at an accessible level; he designs his pipes with an eye to an open draw and comfort of use. From 2014 to early 2016 he worked on Chheda Pipes together with Premal Chheda, owner of Smokers' Haven, while also continuing his own line; he later left that collaboration.

• Jimmy Mermet — Son of Andre Mermet and a maker in his own right. He has carried on the Mermet brand that began with his father's business in France; the business's roots trace back to his grandfather. His pipes are known for being undervalued on the estate market relative to what they deserve.

• Jo Davidson — Not actually a pipe maker but a sculptor internationally known mainly for clay portrait busts. His connection to the pipe world came through the Marxman heirloom line launched by Bob Marx in the 1940s. Toured as a traveling exhibition, the collection was presented in 1947 as pipes made by hand from artists around the world, some of them famous. The line's most notable piece was the figural pipe Davidson carved around March 1947, bearing his own portrait.

• Joe Case — Joe Case, working in Kingston Springs, Tennessee, makes his own pipes alongside pipe repair and restoration. He runs his repair business under the name Briarville.

• John Chapman — A pipe maker apparently American. His known pipes are dated 1974, 1977, 1979, and 1980; no other information is documented.

• John Crouch — A tobacconist that has operated in Alexandria, Virginia, for more than thirty years. The shop has also had pipes made bearing its own name.

• John Surrey Ltd. — Based at 509 Fifth Avenue in New York, this firm produced pipes under the John Surrey brand. The Slugger Baseball Pipe it released in 1948 drew great interest: the shank and mouthpiece resembled a baseball bat, and the bowl resembled a ball.

• Johnson, Richard C. — Counted among America's highest-rated pipe makers. In 1939 he began making pipes at Weber Pipe Co., which Carl Weber had founded in Jersey City a year earlier. After leaving the firm he moved to Pennsylvania and bought a farm near Carlisle, continuing production in a small workshop set up on the farm; Weber had him make special-order pieces for years afterward. His name appeared in various books and magazines, most recently in the December 1997 issue of Smoke Shop Magazine. In the early 1980s he trained Eric C. Christie as an apprentice for three years.

• Jorgenson — Yern "Bo" Jorgenson and his wife Billie ran a shop called Gateway Pipes and Tobaccos in Wayne, Pennsylvania. Jorgenson was an authorized repairman for brands including Dunhill and Charatan. He offered his own pipes only at this shop. His pipes were noted for exceptional craftsmanship: Sardinian briar was personally selected at Carl B. Weber's (Weber Pipe Co.) New York factory, production followed a very traditional method using tools inherited from his grandfather, no filler was ever used, and finishing was done with carnauba wax alone.

• Joseph B. Desjardins — A firm working in Fall River, Massachusetts, was one of the large-scale producers of its era at the end of the nineteenth century, at one point employing sixty workers. The company declined with the Great Depression of 1929. One of its brands was JD, its initials rendered inside an oval frame. The firm held two patents, one for a pipe reamer and the other for a mouthpiece-making machine.

• KEN — A brand produced by Prim Associates of America in Chicago. The design was based on a patent by Otto Turinsky: filed in December 1939, the patent was granted in May 1941 under number 2,242,805. Its mouthpiece is lucite; the bowl chamber below contains mechanisms meant to trap tar and moisture, thereby reducing the harshness of the smoke. The pipe was featured in Popular Mechanics in 1946 with a list of six features.

• Kimberly — One of the many brands produced under Arlington Briar Pipes Corp.; the record goes no further than this connection.

• Klodt — Eric Klodt became a pipe enthusiast in 2005 and soon after discovered high-grade pipes and began researching the craft. He gained his technical and tool knowledge by watching makers such as Rad Davis, Grant Batson, Nate King, and Michael Lindner work at the bench.

• Knickerbocker Pipe Co. — Officially named Knickerbocker Smoking Pipe Company, Inc., the firm was based in Brooklyn, with a corporate address at 1271 Avenue of the Americas in New York's Time-Life Building. The company was dissolved on December 23, 1992. Alongside pipes it also sold items such as cufflinks and tie pins. Its Kool-Smok model was an aluminum pipe based on Viking and Falcon designs: airflow could be adjusted with a nut beneath the screw-in briar bowl, and the angled cooling fins cut into the shank gave the impression of a drill bit when viewed from the side.

• Kowal — Jeffrey M. Kowal of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, first offered his handmade pipes through his own eBay shop. Alongside pipes he also works on carved pieces such as wooden sculptures, canes, and gun stocks.

• Kubik — Pipe maker Jim Kubik of Middleburg Heights, Ohio; no documentation exists on his production.

• Kuehl — Carver Alan Kuehl (†) of Grayson, Georgia. No record exists beyond his name and location.

• Laird — Ted Laird of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, is recorded as a new name; his pipes are known only from occasional auctions.

• Lakatosh — Carver John Lakatosh of New Columbia, Pennsylvania, worked in a home workshop in the Susquehanna Valley above Sunbury. He presented most of the pipes he made on weekdays at craft fairs across Central and Southern Pennsylvania. Following a downturn in the tobacco industry he gave up carving and returned to bus repair, later settling in Lewisburg and making furniture for family and friends. He passed away on March 8, 2018.

• Landon & Warner — A firm known for an unusual system-pipe example. Records show it filed a patent application on April 11, 1936; no further detail is documented.

• Lannes Johnson — A maker from Texarkana. A graduate in medical technology, he worked in that field for about thirty years. He began pipe making in 1997 with a kit obtained from Mark Tinsky, then learned from Trever Talbert. He prefers making traditional shapes from Greek briar with vulcanite and lucite mouthpieces. He stamps his pipes with his name or, more recently, the letters LJ set inside a heart, adding a grade, date, origin, and the words handmade. His older grading system rose in order through the letters L, T, C, G, and E, with a number from one to five added according to the quality of the wood and design; the current system relies on one to five heart marks.

• Lassen — Pipes bearing the stamp "CUSTOM MADE by Lassen," mostly in a freehand line, were made by Albert Gold of Wichita, Kansas.

• Ledone — The work of Lucille and Ralph Ledone of Wisconsin; their slogan emphasized that they made pipes for both men and women. Lucille entered the craft under her father's influence; records say she learned it from Baier. She produces fewer than sixty pipes a year; many women users have favored her pipes for their small bowls and long shanks. Her stamp consists of "Cille" and the year.

• Lee — The brand, stamped "Pipe by Lee" along with quality markings on the shank, was distributed by Stewart-Allen Co., Inc. of New York. Grading rises in order from one to five stars. On early pipes the stars have seven points, on mid-period pipes five points; on later pipes a colored gold-star stamp was used. The brand's secondary quality lines were released as Briarlee and Gold Coast, both featured in a Pipes by Lee catalogue.

• Leedy — Tom Leedy of Clayton, Ohio, is regarded as a versatile and creative American maker. His pipes are always freehand and made without a lathe; while some of his designs recall the line of the old Danish masters, most resemble no known example. The internal structure of his pipes is carefully calculated. Alongside imported briar he uses materials such as American fruitwood and olive wood; his natural, carnauba-finished sitter pipes are especially sought after.

• Lewis — Rich Lewis died of a sudden heart attack on June 1, 2023. His family had owned Lewis Pipe & Tobacco since 1969; Rich joined the business in 1972 at age twenty. In the 1980s he worked alongside leading pipe makers in Italy and England; he became nationally known both for his pipe making and as an authorized repairman for numerous high-end brands.

• Lone Star Briar Works — The brand of Mark Domingues, working in Houston, Texas; no detail on his production is documented.

• Longrie — A company founded in the 1930s by Earl J. Longrie of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its slogan emphasized the coolness of its pipes. Longrie held the patent for a spiral cooling coil fitted inside the mouthpiece, filed on June 27, 1932, and granted March 20, 1934, under number US1951665.

• Loscalzo Pipes — The brand of Craig Loscalzo of Lexington, Kentucky. He became interested in the craft after a visit to Kai Nielsen's workshop on the Danish island of Fyn; influenced by Nielsen, he learned the craft under Tim West and Ronni Bikacsan of Nashville. He was introduced to Danish pipes through his Danish brother-in-law, an avid pipe smoker. He produces his pipes under the Pipes by CAL label and also does cleaning and repair work.

• Lucky H Pipes — The pipe arm of Hendrick Wood Creations, founded by artist Chris L. Hendrick of Pearland, Texas. The workshop first produced hand-turned wooden bowls and single-form hollowed pieces, shifted its focus that same year toward writing instruments made from tree roots, and later founded Lucky H Pipes to turn to handmade briar pipes.

• Manges — American maker Rick Manges of Michigan is a member of the International Association of Pipe Smokers Clubs (IAPSC) and a relatively recent entrant to the craft.

• Mark Stewart — He began his career in real estate finance, management, and development in the Philadelphia area, and worked as a sports agent through his company Sports Management, Inc. In retirement he moved to the mountains of the Brevard area of North Carolina and turned to pipe making and repair, becoming a well-liked member of the pipe community. He used Cornell & Diehl's Crooked Lane blend in his own mixtures and did repair work for many venues, most notably Bruce's Pipe Shop in Asheville. His story was covered in Chuck Stanion's article in the spring 2014 issue of Pipes and Tobaccos.

• Mars — According to Wilczak and Colwell's records, Mars pipes were made in America by Otto Sevic and date to 1930; this is consistent with the July 6, 1926 patent indicated by the "MARS, PAT. 7.6.26" stamp found on the pipes. The patent covered a filter mechanism set into the base of the bowl: accessed through a black bakelite cap, the chamber held an aluminum reservoir that collected moisture from the bowl, with a tube extending from the bowl's base down into this reservoir. The cap contained a cotton-like material to absorb the moisture.

• Martin Pipe Company — The brand of Hal M. Silverstein of Albany, New York. Born in Syracuse and a graduate of Syracuse University, Silverstein served as a navy photojournalist in the Vietnam War; he died on November 7, 2003, at age fifty-nine. His pipes carry the "Martin" stamp and are quite rare on the estate market.

• Martin, Sam — A part-time maker from Little Rock, Arkansas. According to the 1987 guide to American pipe makers published by Pipe Collectors International, he made 125-150 pipes a year. He worked full-time at the phone company, making his pipes in an old garage behind his house; his pipes, made with quality briar, had a distinctly rustic look. He died in 1992.

• Mayflower — Mayflower pipes were made by National Briar Pipe Co.; see that entry for details.

• McCranie's — The McCranie's Pipe and Tobacco shop in Charlotte, North Carolina, was founded in 1979; it is today run by the founder's sons, Todd and Trent McCranie. Pipes were made for the shop under its own name by Bill Ashton, stamped MADE IN ENGLAND, and by Tonino Jacono; the sandblasting on Jacono's pipes was also carried out at Ashton.

• Medici — The brand is named in memory of Lorenzo de' Medici, the best-known figure of fifteenth-century Florence, whose patronage of the arts made the city's artistic and architectural flourishing possible. Sykes Wilford of Smokingpipes.com had long carried the goal of building a very high-quality, reasonably positioned American-made brand; when this met Todd Johnson's similar ambition, Medici was born. Adam Davidson made Medici pipes under Johnson's guidance early in his career, before he began working at smokingpipes.com.

• Mehaffey — E.A. Mehaffey ran a pipe and tobacco shop in Wheaton, Maryland. He made pipes for many years, though accounts say his own tobacco blends were more esteemed than his pipes. He continued his business into the 1980s.

• MelloPure — A pipe made by the Mellopure Pipe Company of Cincinnati, Ohio, based on a 1947 Canadian patent. It is a six-piece metal system that includes a cleaner-condenser fitted into the shank and removable from the front of the pipe. Designed as the core of the system, this piece, drawn out along discs arranged along its axis, was meant to wipe the tar and oil from inside the shank as it was removed.

• Mesa Woodsman — Hugo Mesa was the brother-in-law of LPI's Barry Levin. He made a small number of sculptural, unusual pipes.

• Milan Bros. — Milan's story began in February 1912 with a small shop J. H. Milan Sr. opened on Jefferson Street in Roanoke, Virginia. As the business quickly grew, J. H. and his new partner A. H. Milan moved into additional space at the same address. Following A. H. Milan's death in 1938, J. H. once again became sole owner; three of his six sons carried on the trade within this family business. After an unbroken forty-four years, the shop moved in 1956 into a new building of roughly 2,400 square feet on Jefferson Street, where it remained for more than fifty years. The business passed to Don and Myriam Roy in 1994, and to their daughter Renée and her husband David Meyer in 2000.

• Milton — Pipe maker Herb Milton of Margate, Florida. Whether he retired or passed away is unclear from the records; no other information is available.

• Milton Brian Kalnitz — Milton Kalnitz, father of pipe maker Brian Kalnitz, owns Bellezia. He began building his own handmade pipe line in the 1960s and formally founded his business in the 1970s. By his own account, when he began making pipes there were only six other businesses offering handmade pipes in North America besides his own. He is also teaching pipe making to his grandson David Kalnitz, who works at the shop.

• Mission Briar — A brand that emerged during World War II and vanished shortly after the war. When briar imports became difficult in 1941, Kaufmann Bros. & Bondy began making pipes from manzanita root under Kaywoodie, while Reiss-Premier Co. did the same under its own name; this is the origin of the name "mission briar." KB&B's subsidiary Pacific Briarwood Company owned plantations of this shrub in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. Since the wood was not as high-quality as true briar, the venture was abandoned after the war. Monterey pipes were made by Kaywoodie using mission briar.

• Mock — Midwestern carver Don Mock (†) was born in Minnesota and, at the time his profile was prepared, lived in Montevideo, Minnesota.

• Monarch — Monarch Pipe Co. was founded in Hartford, Connecticut, most likely in the late 1930s, by Fred Warnke, who had received a patent for a system pipe on January 22, 1935. The company moved in the 1950s to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and later to Bristow, also in Oklahoma. Monarch also produced the E. A. Carey Magic Inch and Duncan Hill Aerosphere pipes.

• Moon Valley Pipe Works — The brand of pipes made by Cody Easom in Boise, Idaho; no record exists beyond the maker's name and city.

• Moonshine Pipes — The Moonshine Pipe Company was founded by Jonathan Lavezzo in a small eight-by-ten-foot cabin in Charlottesville, Virginia. Having spent most of his working life in carpentry and construction, Lavezzo, after surviving a serious motorcycle accident, sought a trade that would be less punishing on his body and mind. His interest in working with wood pointed that search toward pipes; the brand quickly drew the attention of his peers and was featured in various publications.

• Murado — Only the brand name appears in the records; no information is available about it.

• N.W.R. Pipes — The brand of Nathan Rimkus of Los Alamos, New Mexico. Rimkus works by day as a materials engineer and makes his pipes on weekends. He started the craft as a woodworking and design experiment during his university years, setting out on the path together with his father, Victor Rimkus (Rimkus Pipes).

• National Briar Pipe Co. — A firm based in Jersey City, New Jersey. Its known brands include Biltmore, Forecaster, Honeybrook, King Eric, Kleenest, Nifty, Rembrandt, Sir Sheldon, Drysmoke Silvertone, The Mayflower, and The Doodler; the last of these was created by Tracy Mincer and was produced by him for a time. Rembrandt-branded pipes carry an italic capital "N" on the left side of the mouthpiece; the same stamp is thought to have been used on the firm's other brands as well.

• Neeb — David Neeb began his working life as a maritime lawyer. After smoking pipes for many years, he retired and tried selling pipes under the name MKELAW Pipes, then learned pipe restoration, and finally pipe making. He learned the craft first from Lee von Erck and then from Rad Davis. He works in Elm Grove, Wisconsin, offering both his own pipes and pipes he has restored.

• New Jersey Briar Pipe Co. — A firm producing mostly stock-clearance, promotional, and private-label pipes. It was acquired in 1956 by S. M. Frank & Co. and continued operating as that company's subsidiary until December 31, 1972.