Details of the June Meeting
This is going to be a short review of our last meeting. I've been on vacation, and so much has gone on since then that I don't even remember much about what happened. Sure seems like a long time between meetings.
I do remember having another nice group of folks at CP Perkins including a group of CB's regular cigar guys. Sometimes you feel like you just want to stay there all night. Dinner at Papa Gino's was adequate but I wouldn't really call it enjoyable. But it's cheap and quick so we'll most likely be there until people get tired it I guess.

Adam in Afghanistan. I think you will finally be getting your TobacCare Package. I do believe it's been shipped. I hope you enjoy it and will share it with your fellow comrades in arms. I hope the weather's not been too hot over there.

SHPC 2010 Club Pipe - Will it be here for the July Meeting
Well, I've been told that they are on their way so barring any major postal problems we should have them on Tuesday. I talked with Bill Feuerback yesterday and he tells me the blast on all of the pipes really came out great and the dark brown stain looks real nice with the tortoise shell stem. The photo above was taken after the top and stem were turned with a new cutting tool made just for this project.
            Don't forget to bring your money with you!

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Better Days
A Series on Pipe Smoking's Nostalgic Past
                                                           By Ernie Whitenack

SHPC Member Ernie Whitenack has offered to write a series of articles about the "better days" of pipe smoking as remembered by him. We hope you enjoy these stories and look forward to them in future editions of the SHPC Gazette.

Germany, Cigs and Ration Cards
With the end of WWII came a burst of prosperity fed mostly by technical advances coming out of the war effort. Profits from many companies producing war goods (and who wasn't) supplied the money to convert back to peacetime products and production.

Along with the boom came a myriad of new cigarette brands, most long forgotten by me but some are still around. I think the cork tip, a forerunner to the filter, appeared on Viceroy and Raleigh about the same time. Many old brands, like Wings and Marvels, that appeared during the war simply faded away along with old class B standards like Twenty Grand. I think the beginning of the pipe boom started with returning veterans. Some returned to high school and I noticed several smoked pipes. I was told they picked them up in France or Holland.                                                             [Read More...]