Thread: Pipe smoking and SR shaving

I've just though of that whole "things I can use" thing the other day. I'm pretty much the same. I have a very nice handmade hat, a custom fountain pen on order and a few razors. I love the way pocket watches look but also enjoy wristwatches. I constantly have to take care so taht I don't pick up yet ANOTHER hobby that's going to cost me a lot of money. My wife sighs already every time I talk about something cool that I say (on ebay or one forum or the other).

internet makes you very susceptable to various AD's

FPAD
BAD
RAD
WAD
SAD
SCAD etc etc

I can't speak to the tobacco products but I enjoy using a good quality fountain pen as my primary writing instrument. There's just something relaxing about filling the pen from an ink bottle.

Of course, this coming from the guy who still wears 3-piece suits (if any can be found anymore) and fedora hats.

Originally Posted by steve

I can't speak to the tobacco products but I enjoy using a good quality fountain pen as my primary writing instrument. There's just something relaxing about filling the pen from an ink bottle.

Of course, this coming from the guy who still wears 3-piece suits (if any can be found anymore) and fedora hats.

I'm with you on the fountain pens - picked up a couple of nice ones in the UK that I use everyday. Note: unless you have several thousand pounds to blow, don't buy fountain pens in Harrods - that was an eye opener!

James.

I don't want to take this thread over from its orignial topic. PM me if you're interested in a couple of websites for the pens, I'd be happy to share.

For me, the notion started with old rifles. I don't think I really realized what the appeal was until I read this several years ago.

Straight razors, pipes, fountain pens, old guns, hats, these things all allow us to rebel against the postmodern disposable culture in small and personally meaningful way. So many of life's elements have been reduced to unpleasantness, but we as men can reclaim them, because even the most mundane and disagreeable task can be rendered pleasant by a quality tool and pride in its use.

Hmmmnnn??? Definitely a pattern here. I have around 70 pipes and a lot of tobacco and cigars cellared. Also many hats of all types; fedoras, westerns, outbacks, etc. in felt, cloth, and straw. Tweed hats and caps, including a deerstalker. Quite a few knives, folding and fixed blade. One thing that I haven't seen mentioned are walking-sticks. I have around a dozen of these and always carry one when on foot.

For quite a long time I've had a fascination for old movies from about the thirties and forties. I was once acquainted with an elderly man who told me that back then a man never left the house without a suit and hat on. Quite a difference from today. Even though I've never been much of a suit wearing type I always liked the clothing styles from sixty to seventy years ago- fedoras, double breasted suits, etc. Also I collect old military rifles from the first half of the twentieth century. I appreciate the workmanship that went into even mass produced firearms of the period compared to the stamped sheet metal contraptions in vogue today. I suspect part of the fascination for antiques is the knowledge that these are objects that were owned and used by people from a different time. When I shave with an antique razor or take an old Mauser or Moisin- Nagant to the shooting range, I sometimes think about who owned it previously and what was his life was like. Not really so much the major events as those are in the history books but the small, everyday things that people take for granted. This brings to mind a scene from the movie "Back To The Future" starring Michael J. Fox. In one scene, Fox's character tries to twist the cap off a bottle of soda out of a habit acquired from his life in his own time. But twist off bottle caps didn't exist in the mid fifties. If his father in that time hadn't opened the bottle for him there's no telling how long he might've stood there trying to twist that cap off.

never got into pipe smoking but i still roll my own smoke by hand, i particulary love samson halfzware shag and its full body flavor, and ican see mastering and learning both skills.