November 15, 2021 Meeting Minutes

Meeting opened at 7:00pm

Old Business:

  • There will be a social smoke on Saturday, November 27th at Iwan Ries from
    12-5pm. We ask that if you’re coming you RSVP to either Tim or myself. Hope to
    see you all there.

New Business:

  • December 11th is our annual CPCC Christmas Party!! Come hang out at the shop any time- the party technically starts at 6pm but you’re welcome at any time! Please RSVP to Amu through email at amujtorress@gmail.com. Each member is allowed one guest. Please RSVP for this
  • We are looking for anyone who is willing to volunteer to help with our social
    media presence! Please reach out to me if you are good at social media and
    want to help us spread the word about all things Chicago Pipe Club!
  • January meeting is Saturday, January 15th!
  • Customer Appreciation at Arlington Pipe and Cigar Lounge is Friday, December
    17th- ALL DAY LONG! Come on by for deals on cigars, pipes, live music, food
    and a wonderful time!

We celebrated birthdays from November:

  • Tim Garrity- November 2nd
  • Bob Pecorini- November 7th

Raffle winners:

  • $80- Charles Morley
  • $40- Michael Trench
  • $40- Mary Rice
  • 2021 Peterson Christmas Pipe- Fred Hanna

Next Meeting is our Holiday Party at Arlington Pipe and Cigar Lounge at 6pm!
Please RSVP to the Christmas meeting with your name and the names of any
spouse/guest you might be bringing. Each member is allowed one guest


Meeting adjourned at 7:16pm

August 21, 2021 Meeting Minutes

Meeting opened at 7pm

Old Business:

  • None

New Business:

  • We are sad to announce the club and pipe community has suffered two broken
    pipes. John Goldberg and Chuck Rio have passed and will be missed very dearly
    by all the CPCC.
  • We are currently working on a new website! Keep your eyes open for more
    information in coming emails and meetings!
  • We wanted to wish Bob Pecorini and his wife Mary good luck in their move to
    Florida! Thank you Pecorinis for all your love and support of the club throughout
    the years!
  • Negotiations for a new CPCC Pipe Show location are currently ongoing. The
    show board hopes to have more information at the next meeting.

We celebrated a birthday from August:

  • Heather Walker- August 31st
  • John Winton- August 17th
  • Glen Baskin- August 10th

Raffle winners:

  • $80- Heather Walker
  • $40- Jason Paliatka
  • $40- Dino Argyropoulos

Next Meeting is on Saturday, September 25th at Arlington Pipe and Cigar Lounge at 7pm!

Meeting adjourned at 7:21p

March 20, 2021 Meeting Minutes

Meeting opened at 8pm
Old Business:

No old business
New Business:

Chuck Martin and the CPCC Pipe Show Board members have made the sad announcement that due to the Illinois governor’s announcement this week regarding COVID-19 restrictions, the 2021 CPCC PIpe Show has been canceled. The state’s reopening strategy pushes the state’s opening standards well past August, so the show officers have made the decision to cancel before we get too close to the show dates. As we move forward, the show officers will begin immediately working on the 2022 show.
More information will be released next week on the show’s website.

Welcome New Members!

  • Anthony Cascio-Mariana
  • David Loehning
  • Sally Rice
  • Sean Wilken
  • Dan Wilken

We celebrated birthdays from March

  • David Loehning- March 13th
  • Perry Martin- March 15th
  • Joe Kryger- March 26th

Raffle Winners!

  • $90- Joe Kryger
  • $45- Phil Licata
  • $45- Theresa Pecorini

Next Meeting is on Saturday, April 17th at 8pm at Arlington Pipe and Cigar Lounge.

Meeting adjourned at 8:16 PM

Sailing With Captain Black

I am a delicate flower. I like my tobacco to be beyond aromatic. I want it to smell of vanilla, and Smurfs riding on unicorns through clouds of cotton candy.

For years I have been intrigued by Captain Black tobaccos. Having acquired a few Captain Black pipes, I decided to go sailing with Captain Black. My friends, the seas were rough.

Our first voyage was with Captain Black Original. It smelled all of what I would hope for with a smoke with hints of vanilla, but it smoked like burnt incense. It had mild tongue bite with an acrid aftertaste. It also came with a mild case of throat burn.  

Our second voyage was on the Captain Black Gold sea. Again, the aroma before smoke was of rich tobacco, and it smoked akin to a high end cigarette. The tongue bite was present, but at least there was no throat burn. The acrid aftertaste was the same as the original, but I had to sail on. If you have a friend who is trying to stop smoking cigarettes, this may be a good half step.

The third voyage was with Captain Black Royal. Same rich tobacco aroma as its predecessors, along with the same tongue bite. Like being stuck on a Royal Caribbean Cruise, Captain Black Royal had me wishing I was smoking a smaller bowl.

The last voyage was with Captain Black Copper. Of all the series, this was by far the best. Mild tongue bite, no throat burn, and a mild aromatic note. Copper lacked the aromatic punch that this delicate flower looks for in his aromatics.

In closing, I would suggest booking a cruise on some other aromatic as Captain Black is definitely lost at sea.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of a delicate flower and do not express the views of The Chicago Pipe Collectors Club.

June 13, 2020 Club Meeting Minutes

The meeting was held at Arlington Pipe and Cigar.Meeting Opened at 8.

We have not set a date yet for July. Please wait for an update once the date and location is confirmed.

There was no old business to discuss.

Announcement was made regarding elections for club officers. Allen Boyd will be stepping down as president. Tim Garrity has volunteered to run for club president. Paul Bender has volunteered to continue serving as club treasurer. We have two candidates for Vice President: Chris “Herm” Hartman & Ron Pecorini. Amu Torres has volunteered to serve as club secretary.

If any active member is interested in any of these officer positions, please send your name and a brief introduction to Tim Garrity. 

Elections will be held at our July meeting.

Show Update:The show officers will be meeting to continue planning for next year’s show.

James Connelly, from Stem and Briar will be hosting an informal pipe show and party in August at his home in Oak Creek Wisconsin.  If you are interested in attending, please contact Tim Garrity so he can coordinate carpooling and other logistics.

State of the Estate Market

Years ago, perhaps starting in the mid-to late 1980s and certainly in the 1990s,  one of the hobby’s periodicals published an article purporting to give we pipe collectors/hobbyists insight into what was hot and selling well and what was in less demand.  Since the article was the work of one person, it could only be accurate to a point.  Barry Levin must have been the writer a bunch of years as selling used, and new, pipes was his livelihood.  Used pipes at the time were a relatively new business.  There was a guy from Texas who wrote the article a few times and Rob Cooper may have been one of the contributors.  I, too, wrote it times and no doubt my submissions were the least accurate of all.  At no time do I have my fingers on the pulse of anything and my corner of the pipe world probably reflected no more than that…a segment too small to be representative.  

This was a long time ago…Larry Roush was an attendee at pipe shows selling collections and not yet a pipe maker and Mike Butera was unknown as an individual, because he was kept under Levin’s thumb.  The used pipe market was driven by mailers…some with photos (Levin…very advanced) and some solely by descriptions created on a manual typewriter (me.)

What, according to memory was hot back then?  Hard to remember in totality, but for sure there was a time when Barling, hyped no doubt by Levin, was in great demand and commanding very high prices.  I know of one person who flew from Calif. to Barry’s home in the woods of Vermont just to be at the heart of a Barling auction that Barry was conducting.  As many of these pipes came from one man’s collection, that individual did very well as a seller.  The Barling market today is a lot less fierce.  On the other hand, I am seeing nearly no great looking old Barlings…can’t recall the last time a terrific Quaint crossed my vision.

After that era came another, prompted by the entrance of UpTown in Nashville, with Keith Peters (I hope I have the name right) at the helm.  He was astute and focused on the most skilled of the Danish makers…establishing a market for their pipes at prices never seen before, and there was a near mania for them.  People couldn’t wait to spend thousands of dollars, if they had it, for briar pipes.  Nice briar pipes to be sure, but in the end, nothing more than a briar pipe, and smoking no better than other well constructed briar pipes with quality, well aged wood.  Is UpTown still in business as an importer of pipes?  If so, they no longer seem to be a household name in the pipe world.  

Smoking pipes is now the big name in new and used pipes, but I don’t get the impression that they hype one brand, or one country, over others.  It looks like a steady plugging away is their long term game plan.  If asked (and I neither have been nor will be) that seems the most solid policy for both the business and consumer.  

But it’s still interesting to know what’s in the mind of a large segment of the pipe consuming public.  I would like to know what others are seeing and doing and I’m happy to tell you all what I’m seeing and doing in what is still, as it was from 1977 to now, my corner of the pipe market.  

It is a one-man business with a total sales of 60 pipes for the first 3 mos. of 2020.  That sounds about average and is probably more information than I should part with, but what the hell.  Over the years, the best selling segment (the pipes are partitioned by nation of production) are the English pipes.  By far.  Dunhill is still a very solid brand.  All the old English brands have a following and as long as the pipe is in good condition and properly priced, it will sell, usually sooner rather than later.  Not only do the English pipes outsell any other country’s pipes in plain numbers, they do so despite the greater proliferation of brands from other major pipe producing country, to which I count Denmark, Germany and Italy.  (France and even Holland produce a lot of pipes, but their bands don’t generate a lot of interest in the U.S.)

That English pipes outsell those of Denmark and Germany is understandable because the top rated pipes from those nations can be quite expensive, and so they are limited to a small segment of the collectors.  But Italy has an awful lot of great brands, and many of them are not too expensive, yet a used $150 Dunhill will outsell an $85 Ser Jacopo or Radice.

Castello might keep pace with Dunhill at more or less the same entry price of $150 for a solid entity but an entry level used pipe by one of the other brands will have to be priced considerably below that to draw interest, even if the new price of that pipe is about the same as a Castello or Dunhill.

What accounts for this demand is perhaps the question most interestingly asked, but if an answer is wanted, it will have to be asked from someone other than me.  In the new pipe market, my instincts tell me that the Italian pipes are the biggest sellers.  But it’s hard to sell a new pipe, so my site focuses on used pipes that have been purchased inexpensively and can thus be offered for a low and appealing price.  When all is said and done, price is what drives the used pipe market.  And that’s the state of the estate market from Northern California.  

Marty Pulvers 

Physical, Not Social Distancing

These are interesting times we live in. Yeah, you’ve heard it 100 times. Make that 101 now. You’ve also heard of “Social Distancing,” haven’t you? What does that mean? Are we not supposed to talk to anyone? Make no phone calls? Post no updates on social media? If this novel coronavirus can’t travel a distance of 6 feet via water droplets, why are we being asked to socially distance and not physically distance ourselves? Many communities, much like our own pipe collectors’ community, thrive on meet-ups, sharing of experiences and maybe even some tobaccos and libations.

A big part of pipe shows and pipe clubs is the social aspect of the hobby. As soon as I get on Instagram, I’m flooded with beautiful artisan made pipes. I can go to eBay or other marketplaces to peruse estate pipes, but the social aspect of the hobby is what we’re really missing right now. We can’t walk up to a table and pick up a pipe or talk to the seller about its provenance or maybe negotiate a trade or sale.  In Chicago, the tent, bar, McArdle suite or even exhibitor rooms were a place of social gathering AND pipe banter. We could share a beer with our friends from abroad. Yes, pipes often exchange hands at shows, but it’s the social aspect that kept us returning to Chicago for 25 years. 

How are we maintaining that in this era of “Social Distancing?” Companies have moved to Zoom, GoTo Meetings, WebEx and Microsoft Teams. Why can’t this community do the same? My work team often video conferences throughout the day on various work-related tasks, but we also get together after work to have a drink in each other’s company, even if that means we’re not in the same physical room. Why can’t we smoke in the same way? Technology can help with distancing AND remaining social. This is just an opportunity for the club to grow in different ways. Maybe when our next CPCC meeting is virtual, we might get some attendees from across the globe. We can hear more from our brethren and what their experiences are while still breaking out our fancy pipes to smoke. What could be even better, is you can smoke what you like and no one will comment on the room note! 

Please, continue to maintain a physical distance and follow the CDC / WHO guidelines. But those guidelines don’t say anything about hanging out virtually with friends and sharing a drink & smoke. 

Be well,

Aziz Panjwani