The last posting on this spot scared some people (and undoubtedly made others jump for joy) into thinking that I was going to abandon this site, stop typing and fold up the business. That was not the intent and is not the case. I just had nothing to say. That may still be the case, but the encouragement I received about continuing The Mill, mainly from the old proprietor of The Cigar Warehouse in Sherman Oaks, Larry Wagner, got me to thinking of what I could do to keep white space from taking over…maybe even taking over the site. As those devotees of Melville out there know, white can be an evil color, or absence of color. It’s been a while since I’ve read Moby Dick (the greatest American novel and likely the best novel published in English) but isn’t there a chapter titled “The Whiteness of the Whale”? And when Ahab referred to the white whale, he was not thinking of cutesy. So, forcing customers to enter a site with just white staring at them is not helping create an auspicious atmosphere. Something has to be done; and something will be done. Here’s my plan:
Rather than force it, so to speak, and continue with My Life in Pipes, which seemed like a decent concept once, but does not seem so now, I’ll approach that same idea from the much less linear angle of just relating the pipe stories (or any stories…remember this is my page and whatever I say goes) that come to mind. Many of the stories have been oft told, and it might bore you to hear them another time. Indeed, when asked to be a guest presenter by the Virtual Pipe Club, that’s what I did…tell stories. I think you can look it up. (Telling stories was a lot safer when in front of all those pipe guys than making pronouncements about pipes, which have a huge chance of being wrong. How can a story be wrong? It can only be good or bad. It can be, as Mark Twain would be the first to tell you, highly exaggerated, but so what? As long as no one sues for libel and you enjoy it, that’s what counts here.
If other ideas crop up, they might be posted and a pipe-related story delayed, but that doesn’t sound like a problem that should dissuade you from looking at and buying a pipe, does it?
Maybe the first story will go up today, maybe not, but I do know which one it will be…one of my favorites. Nothing like a great story to pull you in. It’s the one about Preben Holm and The Royal Bank of Copenhagen (or Royal Bank of Denmark…I always forget which). So thanks for reading and I hope you are regaled by all the pipe events that have made up the 45 years of my life in pipes.

I’m in luck. Maybe you are too, if you haven’t heard this one before. I’m in luck because I typed this out in order to regale someone with it and I was lucky enough to find it. I hope you like it. It’s as true as I can tell it.

Here is the Preben Holm story:

On a trip to Copenhagen, my first stop, as usual, was to see Bjarne Nielsen...a true friend. He stayed at our home during his trips to Northern Calif. pipe shops and we always spent good time together at the trade shows each year. I miss him very much.

Anyhow, on this trip, and Preben had already been dead a number of years, Bjarne said that The Royal Bank of Copenhagen (or Denmark...I always forget the exact name) had called him up and they wondered if he would be interested in a large number of pipes they had from Preben Holm. They had them as collateral for a loan given to Preben and, of course, Preben was now in no position to ever redeem them and pay back the loan. Bjarne wasn't interested, he had his own pipes to sell, but he knew I was coming and told them he might have an interested party. When he asked if I was interested I excitedly said I most definitely was.

You can imagine the images that were dancing through my head. Here, I was positive, was the very best of the best that Preben ever produced. Those pipes that were so good that he wouldn't even offer them for sale, keeping them for himself, and good enough to secure a loan, maybe a big loan, from the country's largest (presumably) and most prestigious bank. No Nutcracker fairytale images could match the overweening visions in my head that night, believe me. Bjarne called up to make the appointment, and the next day, after breakfast, we headed over to the bank.

A proper young man in a suit came out to greet us and take us up the back hallways into a richly wood paneled room. He told us to wait, and then he went to get a number of those banker boxes...about 4 or 5 as I recall it. He put the boxes down and bid me to take off the lid and look through the boxes at my leisure.

Each pipe was in its own box, so I undid the first Preben Holm box, prepared to have my eyes knocked out of my head with the most fantastic grain ever; and what did I see? Well, do you remember those unfinished Karl Erik freehand pipes that were often in a basket near the register of pipe shops? They sold for about $35, more or less. No grain, no stain, cheap vulcanite stems. But who knows, they might have smoked very well. They were just not worth finishing...better to cut short the expense and take whatever money they might bring in, and run. That is exactly what this pipe looked like...an unfinished, no grain, standard shape freehand. "Disappointed" can barely suggest what I felt. "Well," I thought, "maybe that's an aberration...maybe the rest will be what I hoped for." Box after box revealed the same sad rendition of a pipe.

"These aren't Preben Holm pipes," I told the waiting, expectant, young banker, "these are the pipes his apprentices were learning on; they’re rejects. They don't represent Preben Holm's production one bit. They may be stamped 'Preben Holm' but nobody who knows anything about pipes would mistake these for the Preben Holm pipes they've seen in pipe shops." I think he was dubious of that statement (he had no frame of reference by which to judge that or any other statement regarding pipes. He would have been lucky to be able to distinguish a briar pipe from a drain pipe. But I opened a few more boxes to satisfy myself that no gems were buried in the other boxes. No buried gems were to be found.

What to do? Well, they were stamped "Preben Holm," and they were drilled and made of briar, so I told the banker's apprentice that I wasn't that interested in them, but I could probably sell them based on the name, so I offered, I think, $35 apiece. Maybe it was $25. In either case, considering the cost of shipping, customs, packaging, etc., it was more than I should have. But, the young banker must have been told an amount he needed to secure based on what Preben was advanced, and he was rather aghast. Plus, as I intimated, he visibly showed that he thought I was bluffing and trying to lo-ball him. He said, 'no,' he couldn't possibly take that offer. I was actually relieved. Getting 150 or so pipes, marginal pieces at that, from Denmark to the U.S. isn’t easy or inexpensive.

We started walking out of the room, with Bjarne having said essentially nothing. He was very smart, and he was just watching. As we started going toward the door you could sense, or at least I believe I could sense, that the banker expected me to start coming clean with my offer and raising it. But no, I had, in fact, offered more than good sense would dictate. I was disappointed at what I saw, but not disappointed at not acquiring the pipes that I saw. In any event, we kept walking, said good-bye and moved on to the rest of our day's business. The banker never heard me say, “well, Ok, I’ll make it 50 apiece. Not good enough, let’s make it $65 each.” It was a nice try on his side, but no dice.

However, once outside the bank, Bjarne and I had the following conversation among ourselves. "Imagine," we said, "at the absolute glee Preben felt at walking out of that bank with thousands of dollars (who knows...$10,000? $20,000?) while at the same time solving a problem he had...how to dump these 'practice' pipes for which he could not possibly find an earthly use. What he must have done was to bring staid old bankers the invoices from his sales to companies like Lane, his press clippings, & ads showing the inflated prices his best straight grains were offered at to the public. What did the bankers know? They thought they were getting $100,000 worth of merchandise as collateral for a 10 or 20 thousand dollar loan. Can't miss. And now they will find out they've been taken, but good. For once, somebody, Preben, got the last laugh on the bankers. And then he drops dead, with no chance of them recovering a cent from him."

I soon left town, but it didn't take the bank long to realize that I wasn't bluffing and they were holding an empty bag. They called Bjarne back, asked him to come and pick up those pipes for whatever he was willing to give them for it (I never did ask him what the amount was, but I'll guess it was about $15-20 per pipe, for about 150 pipes) and he brought it along with the rest of his stock on his next trip, selling them to his retailers. And that is my Preben Holm story. All Hail Preben Holm.