Pipe Tobaccos

The diameter and depth of a pipe's bowl determine how much tobacco a single packing holds, how long the smoke lasts, and how much the bowl tends to heat up. This entry covers the archaeological origins of the measurement, its definitions, and why it has never been tied to a standard.

Walking sticks with a pipe bowl, mouthpiece, tobacco, snuff, or matches hidden in their shaft or handle. A forgotten accessory of 19th-century Europe, today a subject of collecting.

The path from hobby to expertise in pipe collecting: the criterion that separates a collection from a mere pile, history's great collectors, and the fact that this pursuit still lacks a settled name of its own.

How tobacco prepared for smoking in a pipe differs from cigarette tobacco, the core leaf varieties that make up a blend, the stages of processing, and the cut styles found on the market.

Ben Rapaport's February 2023 essay investigates who is granted the label "expert" in pipes and tobacco, and by what criterion. It sets the nameless experts of promotional language against the handful of names the community actually calls by name.

The pipe records preserved in trade journals, consular reports, and industrial encyclopedias from the mid-19th century to the first quarter of the 20th; where this body of material can be trusted, and where it should be read with caution.