Naturally, I don't consider myself an impulsive person, well, not especially impulsive. But occasionally I do end up in positions that I'd prefer to avoid. I found the pipes news group at the point when my favorite tobacco was no longer being distributed in the U.S. After I found a decent source for it, I remained with the news group because it was interesting to see what other pipe smokers were saying. One doesn't run across too many other pipe smokers in any given day. Even seeing another person smoking a pipe can be quite a novelty. One post was by a person named Mark Tinsky. The name was familiar because the previous year or two, I had purchased from a catalog a pipe made by Mark Tinsky, the first pipe I got in some 10 years. So I wrote and asked him if he was the same person who made the pipes. Yes! The catalog stopped distributing his pipes, but I liked his style. As our original conversations at the turn of 1995 to 1996 predated Mark's web pages, the only way to see one of his pipes was for him to send a sample. He mentioned that he had a number of freehands that he kept from the catalog, and so I asked if he could send a few. He sent six. Six pipes! What was I do? I didn't want that many. But I had to make a decision. At the time I thought the best way was arranging all the pipes in stands and keep them in a row on top of my desk. Talk about mistakes. The moment I arranged the pipes, I didn't have six pipes to choose from but a set of pipes, all demanding attention and each other's company. Each seemed to have that special character to make a pipe owner proud. Nor did it help when Sue said that she preferred the one with the green stem; she had never seen a green stem before. Neither had I, so I thought that would have been an easy one to send back. However, marriage has taught me the value of agreement. In the end, I did manage to send back one of the pipes. So I only bought five.
Closeup of two favorites (on the right in the top photo), which I've named Viking (for its high prow) and Swan (for its long neck)