History and Culture

A steampunk science-fiction narrative published in serialized installments on Pipedia by a writer from the pipe community under the pen name "Professor Stanwell P. Briar"; its characters, pipe-smokers all, continue a time-travel series.

The 1851 Great Exhibition, held in the Crystal Palace, is considered the event where pipes were first displayed side by side on an international stage. The pipe section of the exhibition offers a snapshot of the era's production geography as it stood.

Unusually large bent pipes bearing the standard shape numbers 612 and 622, seen only in Dunhill's 1976 production. Discussed alongside the shape-numbering system's change and the production fluctuations at the end of the decade.

The history of briar's rise as the primary pipemaking material in the mid-19th century in the French town of Saint-Claude, and its eclipsing of clay and meerschaum.

The calumet is the sacred ceremonial pipe North American Indigenous peoples smoked for prayer, treaty-making, and important communal decisions. Known in the West as the 'peace pipe,' its function ran far wider than that name suggests.

Two honors established by the Chicagoland Pipe Collectors Club in 1998 and 2017 are regarded as the only known regular program that recognizes lifetime contribution in the pipe community. Both being tied to a single club has made their continuity a subject of debate.