In article <lDLzd.23532$7p.10130@lakeread02>, Adguru <ela...@cox.net>
wrote:

 Actually it seemd like the  FH boom was dominated by big  companies
such as  PH/Ben Wade. These  seemed to be pretty much  factory faceless
pipes The  few I mentioned , myself included, were  definetly on the
fringe of the market. Large pipe distributing  companies  dominated the
market, Savinelli, Lane, Hollco. They accounted for most of the the US
pipe sales. The artisans were like the mammals  at the end of the
dinosaur  era. At the time we were just  following  what was  
fashionable. I dont think   classical  freehand  shapes  a la  Ben wade
were really  all that  creative. At one time I stated  a monkey  could  
crank them out, or something to that  effect. Rob Siegel ( Marble Arch)  
one time  quoted me on this  and  caught a lot of flack.  I think this
was early on   in ASP. My feeling s over the years haven t  changed. A
freehand  pipe is  easy to crank out as they  dont " have " to look like  
anything. I could make  dozens a  day if I put my mind to it.  Curt and
I   rebelled against this   when we left  JHW and made relatively few of
them as we didn t want  the  "freehand " moniker and it was hard to
escape this as many retailers knew we worked for Jack.

 I think Mike Butera  turned the whole market around by equisitely
making   traditional shapes and  variations. Collectors and smokers  
began to appreciate  what    a well made handmade could be. Also by this
time people were  getting tired of  freehands. They had more or less run
their  course. I dont think the  real wide  taper  bowls smoked all that
well to begin with.

Perhaps this somewhat  coincided with  more sophisticated tobacco s
being sold and  smoked ? Someone who knows more about tobacco history  
could comment on this. A freehand  style   is  well suited to  wet
aromatics. You could  get a relatively dry smoke for at least  2/3 of
the bowl. But I think they  are pretty useless for a better tobacco. I
would like to hear Greg chime  in on this theory....

 Yes they  are pretty much the same and I m sure there was a way to  do
most of the operation on a  frazing machine and  a  couple of  
decorative cuts were added to take out  flaws or to  give them  an
individualized look.

 I m  not   painting the  Danish  masters with this wide brush tho in
away their imaginative work led to the  start the FH  boom. I remember
seeing  Ivarrson pipes in  Iwan Ries  catalogs of that  era and while
they were  free form they  weren t what  became known as free hands.

 The influence was all on their part. The Americans at the time were
just trying to get on board in any way we could  commercially. I think
the only ones  during the 80 s  who had  a unique style were Ed Burak  
and Mike Butera. The rest of us  were searching  for our  styles and
just trying to be pipe makers. Remember  there were  no  Pipe shows
until PCI began them in a small way in the    mid 80 s . There were no
direct sales, everything was done thru  retailers . THEY WOULD ONLY BUY
WHAT  THEY THOUGHT WOULD SELL.   We  were contained by this.

What   altered this equation  was the begining of the  direct sales  era
by Barry Levin. He was instrumental in changing the way pipes were sold
in the US. He championed Butera and later J Cooke and made their pipes
available  thru other than retail shops. Also I would like to add Bob
Hamlin had a hand in this  altho at the time he worked for a  retailer
but thru newsletters sought a wider   clientel than could just  drive to
his shop.

A short lived flowering  occurred when  PCI pipe shows became a  venue
of pipe makers to sell direct. This allowed   artisans the  freedom  to
develop their own styles, still sell pipes, and  not be contained by
retailers ideas of the market. An example of this would be Mike Frey,
tho Mike  realized he couldn t make a living  selling pipes in such  a
small venue. Larry Roush found himself in a similar situation and took a
tempraory leave from pipe making also .

 What  revolutionized pipemaking was   was the advent of the  Internet.
I m pausing here to fill a 97 xmas pipe with hamborger veermeister as
this will be long !

 A little  personal history is in order  here and there was a thread a
few weeks back about how pipe makers  get started. My name was raised  
and I didn thave the time  to answer during Christmas pipe season so
here goes....

 Curt Rollar  and I had the benefit of the apprentice system. We both
worked for jack Weinberger in the 70 s , Curt a lot more than myself and
by the time we started our biz he was an  excellent pipe maker. Jack was
more or less self  taught. A lot of  trial and error and w atching Max
Schulte make pipes in his shop in Maplewood, NJ. I dont know  how Max
got started, perhaps in a pipe factory which were plentiful in this
country back then.

IN 1978 Curt and I got started with a couple thousand  dollars.We had no
briar  and  few contacts.  Jack s nephew, Vic Steinhardt, had left JHW a
couple of years earlier and backed by his family  tried to make a go of
it. His company was called BOI ( Briar Originals Inc.) He sold to NY
shops and even went to the RTDA shows for a couple years before  getting
a real job. After Curt and I  returned from a bicyling  sojourn in
Europe we went to work for  Vic for a couple months in exchange for
briar instead of wages. I dont believe too many BOI pipes were made
after we left. I know  Vic is still in Caldwell , NJ.

IN the fallof 1978,  Curt and I  moved to his  grandfathers  farm in
Frenchtown NJ  and took down  barns  for lumber to build  work benches.
We spent what little money we had on   basic equipment and by the summer
of 79 actually had some pipes  to sell. We spent a very cold winter in  
an unheated farmhouse and worked for a  steam fitter to get by while
setting up our shop.

 We knew some retailers from working at JHW and after buying an old Opel
Cadet were were selling pipes in NJ and later NY. We certainly were not
an  instant success story. Our average pipe retailed for $35  of which
we got half. Luckily  we got our first briar order in and dry before Vic
s briar  ran out so we continued making pipes and buying as much briar
as we could and lived  very frugally!

Thru a lot of  knocking on doors and many miles on the old Opel  we were
able to get our pipes in shops up and down the  East coast. SOme  very
helpful retailers that come to mind are Jay Levine, Puff n Stuff in the
LIRR  concourse NYC, Allen Mandel Tinderbox in Atlanta, Daivid
Birkebaugh  Georgetown  Tobacco  who  was curious enough to see  what
his manager was shooing out the door,  and the original  Smokers haven
of Columbus.

 Our  biggest break was meeting John Hayes  as he was just opening his
shop in  Fair Oaks Mall in Dec of 81. Right time , right place for both
of us. John backed us to the hilt  and thru the 80s  he was our meal
ticket and helped us  reach the mainstream. While we were still very
frugal  we  were able to buy a house in Delaware Water Gap in 1982.

 The  80 s was a good  decade and by 1990 we thought we were  firmly
established. Little  did we know how  fast things could  change ! Curt,
tired of pipe making left in 1990.  The  econonmy tanked , smoking laws
began to change, and  an older generation of pipe smokers retired  and
were no longer buying pipes. By 1992 I was selling hardly anything and
went into full time pipe repair just to survive.

Pipe repair  was good to me and I brought my wife into the business.  
The fortuitous thing about this was by  1995 things were  beginning to
pick up for pipes again and I was able to resume making some pipes while  
keeping the repair business going  part time as she learned and picked
up the  slack.

Being totally  computer illterate at the time, I was dragged into the  
computer  age at her" suggestion" kicking and  screaming the whole way!
I discovered newsgroups and ASP late in 1995  and  advertised the repair
biz.

 SOmetime in 1996 my brother who was  a data base  designer came up with  
a data base  driven   web store with a shopping  cart. We thought we
were on to something big  and our first trial  store was my  pipe biz.
This became, to my knowledge, the first commercial pipe site on the net.
I later  did a web  retail store called Tinsky- Hayes Tob., with John
Hayes which  didn t work out.

Being the  first pipe maker on the net was an advantage, also the  
economy  totally turned around and boomed. New  younger pipe smokers
finally came into the market as well as  cast off s <G>  from the cigar
boom.I totally cut back on  wholesaling,  except for John Hayes as  all
my time  became commited to direct sales. And what good years  those
were !! In hindsight I wish I could  say I forsaw it all, mostly it was
being  in the right place at the right time. Serendipity....

 I ll get off personal history  now. Just as the early pipe shows
allowed some market for   artisans  to  make what they wanted without  
cow towing to  the  reatilers. The internet provided the same impetus. A
whole new  group of American pipemakers began popping up.  The  earliest  
were Paul Bonaquisti who met me   over the net  and some how wormed his
way into my affections and  learned some of  the basics as well as
getting  help from John Ells.

 Our  own Trever Talbert , who  was primarily self taught and self  
marketed. It was really fun to see Trevers  development into a major
pipe maker over ASP. Others  followed and developed their own unique
style, to name a few: Michael Lindner, Todd Johnson,  & Walt Cannoy.  At
this point  even these guys are ancient history  and many good artisan
pipe makers  have come to the fore in the past two years.

 We ve also seen this happen in Europe . In the last 3 years we ve seen
the emergence of Kent Rassmussen, Cornelius Manz and other talented
carvers. Peter Heeschen and Peter Matzhold  experienced  carvers owe a
lot of their success to the Internet.

 Also  during the Internet era we ve seen the emergence of many pipe
clubs, regional and  international shows as well as a fine magazine
devoted soley to Pipes and Tobacco; all in a period of  declining  pipe
sales and percentage  of the population who smoke and more govermental
regulation. Pretty amazing !

 My PREDICTION of where  things are going for now is a greater movement
towards artisan pipe makers and direct sales of pipes whether thru shows
or web sites. Greater competition gives pipe smokers  better value in
pipes. I think the days of the big distributing companies for high
grades is  dead. Even Ashton is doing his own Marketing now. Peterson is
no longer part of a distribution network. Pipe sales are too competitive
for a middle man  ( distributor)  and  part of his job ( marketing and
advertising)  is no longer neccessary.  How this  has affected the  
retailer is another long  story and probably better told  by one who has  
expirienced this  great change; I ll  leave that story for someone else
to tell.

 MT