March 11, 2010
Having fallen behind in my work the past two days,
decided that the best thing for me to do would be to
embrace the beast, not fight it... I am going to visit with
some friends tomorrow (Friday) and won't have a chance
to do a thing related to pipes. Different people cope in
different ways; at least I'm not taking drugs....yet.
I was cleaning up in the garage, throwing out old
invoices, etc., when I came across a batch from 1990/91.
Included were bills from various pipe makers that
supplied Sherlock's Haven, and giving you an insight to
prices from that era, only 20 years ago, might be fun, for
both of us.
I will start off with some repair bills because not only was
my regular pipe repair a genius at his craft, but he was
incredibly cheap, even by standards of the day.
A Dunhill stem, with dot, cost me $8.50. Russ knew the
exact style stem each pipe originally had, so the
replacement was as good as the original. For a
reproduction of a Lucite Castello stem, with the diamond
logo, I had to pay him $15. A normal vulcanite
replacement was $5 and a normal Lucite replacement
was $10.50. You don't know how stricken we all were
when he died, in his 80's. We knew we would never see
his like again, and we haven't. (Although there are some
very good repair guys now, but they mostly consider
themselves artists, and maybe they are, but they take
months sometimes to do what Russ would knock right
out. We never had to wait more than two weeks from the
day we sent him pipes, no matter how many and no
matter what was wrong.)
From 1991, I have a list of the prices Tsuge charged
retailers for Ikebana (hand made) series pipes. The
lowest grade, an A, was $180 retail. His highest listed
grade (I don't recall ever seeing one) was the Q and that
was $2500 at retail.
Stapled to this complete price list was a hand written
invoice to Sherlock's Haven showing 7 pipes that I
purchased and another typewritten invoice showing the
10 pieces I purchased at the trade show that same year,
with the highest grade being E at $430 retail. And I am
sure that those numbers scared me at the time.
An invoice from my departed friend, Bjarne, shows that
his sandblast retailed for $49 and his smooth pipes sold
for $59, while his Giant sandblast was $120 and his Giant
smooth sold for $140 at retail.
I also managed to procure 6 pipes from Larry Roush in
1990 and his Sandblast 4 started at $480 retail. The most
expensive one was a smooth 4 at $340. Them days are
gone forever.
Tobacco was a lot cheaper, too. A pound of a fine
Latakia blend from Elliott Nachwalter's shop in Vermont
was $7.85, while their Rum blend (this might have been
the blend that Basil Rathbone smoked...I can't quite
recall) was even more, at $8.05 a pound to my store.
Finally, I have an invoice signed by Ole and Inge (Inge
was stunning, and she was no youngster. In her youth
she must have torn many hearts apart) Larsen, of W.O.
Larsen. I only purchased two pipes at that moment, but
both were straight grains, an S.G. 7 at $390 retail and an
S.G. 8 at $440 retail.
While these are just cold numbers to you, quite
understandably, these invoices elicit rather touching
memories for me. If I come across any similar paperwork
in the future, allow me to share some of it with you.
MP
P.S. Some good Dunhills were posted on the English
page and one interestingly shaped Castello was posted
on the very bottom of the Italian page.
If anyone is interested I have a sealed, in a cello
package, pouch of 3 Nuns.
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