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03 November, 2018

New Arrivals

Ahhh, my pipe collection has just magically grown by seven. I now have eleven pipes in the rotation. Too cool. I admit it. I've always thought corn cob pipes were something from the Beverly Hillbillys, or something like that.

What tipped me to purchasing these, was reading a news item a few months ago, about General Douglas MacArthur returning to the Philippines. The accompanying photo showed him with his trademark corn cob in his hand as he was wading ashore. There's no way one could accuse him of ever being like the Beverly Hillbillys.

As They Arrived in the Bag
 So, maybe it has something to do with the quality of the smoke. I've always heard they smoked cool and dry, two very desirable pipe qualities. Probably another large factor is the cost. They are extremely economical. Especially when you buy factory seconds by the bagful.

To be honest, I can't tell what makes these factory seconds. I've looked each of them over closely, and other than a large black 'X' on the bottom of the bowl of each pipe, they really seem to me to be first rate - as far as corn cobs go.

Missouri Meerschaum has been producing corn cobs by the hundreds of thousands every year since 1907.


No Glamorous Packing


And, these things are economical to purchase. A little less than $4.00USD each, makes them very attractive.

Even if these were prime, top of the line corn cobs, they still would come in at around $10.00 per pipe. It's hard to beat that price.

The hype is true, however. I picked the dark corn cob to try for my first 'cob smoke,' as it were.

I packed the bowl relatively loosely with Ashton's Smooth Sailing pipe tobacco. Smooth Sailing is an aromatic mixture that's a little nutty to the taste, with subtle flavors of maple, coconut, and dark chocolate.


A Satisfying Smoke
I smoked that bowl-full over a good part of the day, yesterday, between runs to town to take Dianna's new cell phone in to Technicell to be re-flashed. I don't know if it was something I did (or didn't), or some other problem.

We also had a dramatic and very loud thunder and lightning show pretty much the whole time we were in town. The poor doggies were terrified as we drove around.

I had to take Bella's pack in to Alek the tailor, to have a strap re-sewn, chewed through, I'm pretty sure, by Coco, our young pup. I also had to get a new case of Belikin and a case of Schweppes' soda water.

Almost killed Daisy. She was in the back seat of the truck, hiding from the lightning. I hit a bump or something that knocked over the case of Belikin, pretty much on top of her. She made it into the front seat in a flash  That made for a close-packed ride with the three girls and me all in the front seat of the truck. What'er ya gonna do?

It was nice to get back home, get the girls all settled down from the lightning and thunderstorm. I settled down to catch up on email and fired up the corn cob once again.

I was quite favorably impressed with the corn cob. It truly was a cool, dry smoke. Very nice.

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