PCA Magazine Fall 2019

60 PCA The Magazine | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019 PREMIUMCIGARS.ORG W Brick and Mortar and Artisan Pipes BY WI LL I AM C . NELSON The Pipe WHY CAN’TWE get more artisan pipes onto the shelves of brick-and-mortar shops?Maybe it’s just me, but too many of the pipe shops I visit are really cigar stores where the pipe end of the business appears to be almost a kind of afterthought, a pro forma gesture to a bygone day, with undistinguished basket pipes and factorymid-grades predominating, and almost no high-grades to be seen. This can give pipe newcomers a false impression of the range of possibilities that exist in the pipe world. It seems kind of a shame, and very nearly schizophrenic, that a store replete with the finest cigars in the world would be weak in offering their pipe customers the state of the art. Was it always so? In a way, that is an unfair question, given the changes the pipe business has been going through in recent years. For one thing, high-grades were not always the phenomenon in the pipe world that they have now become. The past couple of decades have seen a proliferation of new artisan carvers doing stunning work and raising the bar in terms of beauty and engineering. And, as we all know, the internet has changed everything in retail. An artisan working alone in a home shopmight like to see a few of his pieces on store shelves in his local area, but he doesn’t have to have that outlet. Uncountable pipes get sold nowadays on Facebook, Instagramand discussion forums. So, no, things have not always been the way they are now because the pipe trade has not always been what it is now. And yet ... changing times always give rise to changing business strategies, and surely it cannot be the best strategy just to pretend that high-grades don’t exist. All of these new pipe carvers mean that most shops probably havemore than one artisan pipemaker working in their region. Pipe artisans could provide a shop with stock that, even if it doesn’t exactly fly out the door, would spiff up the inventory andmake the walk-in shopper’s experiencemore enlightening. Wouldn’t that be good for the hobby? George Hoffman has beenmanning the register at — Let’s see more of this action | Top: Pipe by Olie Sylvester Bottom: Pipe by Chris Askwith