A Historical and Pictorial Guide To American
Christmas Pipes
1987-1988
The Banner Years!
The 1987 shape was the most successful selling Christmas Pipe of
all time. It was one of the most difficult to make and was taken
from a design Curt had made for John during the past year. We
changed the shank from an oval to a round taper. This was one of
the first collaborative undertakings as far as pipe making for
Curt and I. I did the lathing of the top of the pipe and the
drilling and Curt performed the final shaping. Up until then we
each made our own pipes start to finish. Also a first was that it
was nationally advertised in PCI magazine. As we had previously
done a PCI club pipe that year we were able to sell quite a few
through the magazine. All told we made close to 150 pipes ranging
from $75 to $300. I think the pipe speaks for itself. AS we
promised never to make it again we fudged somewhat and used the
general shape in our Catalog shape 005 called the Caldron.
Following up on our success with the 1987 Christmas pipe came
the '88. It was a simple billiard, the first straight in the
series with a paneled diamonesque shank. Maybe it was just the
times , who knows, I thought the "Perfect Billiard" we did a few
years later to be a better shape but this one sold a lot better. I
think we sold over 100 of these.
