PIPE VOGUES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 688, 13 June 1929, Page 14

PIPE VOGUES

Auckland Smokers and Their Tastes "CHERRYWOODS” AGAIN Briars, cherries, clays, meerschaums, pseudo-meerschaums and even corncobs-—Auckland pipesmokers have bought all these in huge numbers in the past year. rjt OB ACC ONI STS state freely that A pipes are being sold in larger numbers than ever. And the most shapeless pipe, the inevitable cherry-wood, is having astonishing popularity. Hundreds of Auckland men daily clamber into trams to huddle behind cherry-woods, smoking complacently. Cherry-woods belong to a type resented by observers for many years. Crimean veterans smoked them; the celebrated “roughriders” of New Zealand sought them in the Boer War; Anzacs owned them proudly In the last war. A younger generation of men is playing its part. Little groups of students and clerks, puffing furiously at cherrywoods on street corners, are no uncommon sight in Auckland. There are forests of the pipes protruding from Auckland’s football crowds.

Briars, of course, are easily the most popular pipes. The question confronting buyers is to choose from a thousand makes selling on an immense range of prices. SMOKER’S DARING

There is the daring . speculator, seeking a bargain, who will dive into a tobacconist’s shop and buy a shilling briar in all the glistening glory o£ its varnish. There is suspense in the expectation of flaws in the wood and putty fillings. Sometimes fortune favours a buyer. The most intriguing point ahout briars is the endless number of shapes. From the fragile, straight variety to the twisted kind which somehow depends on to the smoker’s coat lapel there is a pleasing field for the really keen collector. There is one Auckland tobacconist who believes that Personality and pipes go hand in hand. A man will instinctively buy a pipe giving an impression agreeing with his nature, the tobacconist claims. Meerschaums, once the delight of the enthusiastic pipe-smoker, dropped out of public favour shortly after the war. One or two new pioneers are smoking them in Auckland’s streets now, and several tobacconists’ shops are stocking hew lines. The great pleasure in meerschaum smoking has been declared to be in the gradual colouring of the clay. Men take delight in watching the slow darkening of the pipe bowls. So it is with humble clay pipes. Wide variety in these, too, for they range from the penny kind to sturdier makes, with unpleasant faces moulded on their bowls. The waterfront has a distinctive type of clay. One regret in the hearts of Auckland collectors is that no Turkish Hookahs are sold. But there is a shop in Victoria Street West with a cherrywood having a 12-inch stem. A city pawnbroker has the most bizarre pipe bowl in New 'Zealand. It is an ivory skull, used in the East for opium smoking.