The joys and dangers of Ebay pipes

[OC Richard]

Lovely pre-WWII Lawries going very cheaply.

I'm a big Lawrie person, I've owned around a dozen Lawries from 1905 to the 1970s and all have been great pipes.

Lawrie was known to mix two different forms of plastic, Catalin which turns butterscotch and some other plastic that doesn't. This particular set is all mounted in the light-coloured plastic except for the bushes which are Catalin.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pre-WWII-RG....c100010.m2109

Also super cheap are these Catalin-mounted Gillanders & McLeod set. I have a band-mate who plays a set just like this, they sound super.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Gillander-A...4AAOSwocRgfhLo

Here's a Piob Mhor (Blairgowrie) set with issues. Not only does it have that marbilised imitation ivory with loads of cracks, also the wood seems to have a number of cracks. (Not that cracks in the wood bother me that much, I used to play a c1860 set of Glens that had 17 cracks in the Bass Drone stock, all sealed with glue, no leaks.)

This set is stamped 488 which is Piob Mhor's code meaning April 1988.

I recently went down the Piob Mhor rabbit-hole, doing some reading, and exchanging emails with their main maker Michael Phee who made pipes for Piob Mhor from 1986 to 2008. He now has his own pipemaking firm in Australia.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Scottish-Gr...QAAOSwxbJgeLMq