The pipemakers Vollmer & Nilsson have arranged a training-course in pipe-making and four members from our club are pupils. One evening a week they are very busy creating their very first pipe and the enthusiasm is obvious. We visited them one of these evenings and some pictures are showing their efforts. In the next issue we will hopefully be able to present the final result.

The Danish Championship took place on the 17s of March and was the 35s championship in a row. The winner was Jan Lærkeborg, a veteran in the field, who smoked for 02:30:00. Twelve Swedes took part in the competition. A tradition at these events is that a Pipeman of the Year is elected, and this year the pipemaker Tom Eltang was the one to be honored with this title. A very good choice indeed, as his importance for Danish pipemaking cannot be overestimated. He has taught and inspired a lot of young pipemakers and his workshop is a meeting-place, not only for pipemakers from Scandinavia, but also for colleagues from all over the world.

One of our members, Johan Hedborg, has visited the Amsterdam Pipe Museum in Holland. This museum is probably the best in the world when it comes to antique pipes and related things. Johan spent a few days there and had a marvelous time.

The Dollar pipe is a Swedish system pipe, created in 1952 by Gustav Lundblad. Today the company is run by the founder’s granddaughter Sara, who is only 25 years old. The company produces 8000 pipes a year and they are exported to several countries. The name Dollar is used in all countries with the exception of Canada, where the pipes are called Bromma Pipes. Michael Sporrong has visited the factory and entertains us with a full report from his visit.

Earlier this year Rick Newcombe’s latest book Still Searching for Pipe Dreams was released as an audio book. This is the first audio book about pipes ever recorded. Rick himself is reading and his voice is very relaxing to listen to. And before each chapter Rick is interviewed by his son Jack, an interesting and valuable addition to the book. The book is available at www.sumnerbooks.com.

Mellgrens Tobak, a new pipe shop in Gothenburg, opened at the end of last year. Since then it has regularly been visited by different Swedish pipemakers, who have presented themselves and their work. Last March Vollmer & Nilsson were there and we have a report from that event.

Of course we have reviews of some tobaccos and also of two new series of pipes. Stiff is an exclusive pipe with a cover of plastic, made by a Swedish design team. Rattray’s name is well known on tobaccos, but now a series of pipes carrying that name is also available.

A new exclusive cigar and pipe shop, Mellgrens Tobak, was opened in Gothenburg shortly before Christmas. Of course we took part in the inauguration and give you a complete review of the event.

Two events took place in Stockholm at the end of last year. The Tobacco & Match Museum opened a new smoking room, furnished in an oriental style. That style was most popular for smoking rooms here in Sweden in the second part of the 19s century. The other event was that a new local pipe club was formed in our capital. We have a report from that club’s second meeting, which took place in the beginning of this year.

The first of three movies based on the novel The Hobbit- An unexpected journey by J.R.R. Tolkien was given its first performance in Sweden at the end of last year. As is well known, pipe-smoking is an important part in the life of the hobbits and that is the starting point for an article about the movie, written by Nils Ivar Agøy.

We also have reviews of a few tobacco blends and some new books. One book is Swedish, one Norwegian and one American, so it is indeed an international collection.

This and a lot more is found in this issue of Rökringar.

We start a new series of articles called “The Swedish Wonder”. 20 years ago pipe-making was about to die in Sweden, as there was only one active pipemaker left. And no one seemed willing to follow in his footsteps. But then, quite suddenly, something happened and one new pipemaker after another entered the scene. So it is no exaggeration to call this evolution a wonder.

Many of the new pipemakers were presented in our magazine when they started making pipes, but since then our readers may not have heard very much about them. So in a series of articles we ask and answer the question: “What happened then?” We start this tour with two pipemakers living in the city of Halmstad, Lars-Göran “Gurra” Markunger and Jonas Rosengren.

In the beginning of October our club had a meeting in the smokers’ lounge of Davidoff – My Own Blend, a prominent shop in central Copenhagen. My Own Blend is a part of the Orlik Tobacco Company, the world’s largest manufacturer of pipe tobacco. Their master blender, Lasse Berg, had come from the factory in Assens to let us taste some new blends and, of course, he also blended tobacco for all participants who wanted something special to bring home this day. Kristian Rankloo of Scandinavian Tobacco Group (the owner of both Orlik and Stanwell) also joined the meeting and showed us some new pipes Stanwell will put on the market later this autumn.

In almost every issue of our magazine, Johan Hedborg has entertained us with some pieces from his large collection of antique pipes. But Johan is not only a collector, he is also an artist. Some of his watercolor paintings are shown in this issue. We also tell about a trip from Scotland to Sweden Johan took part in last summer. That trip was made with an old sailing-ship and we understood it was quite an adventure.

Later this year a new, very special tobacconist’s shop will open their doors in Gothenburg. The company behind the project is Mellgrens Tobak, a firm that has been in the tobacco business since 1823. This entirely new shop will be very specialized and only carry cigars, pipes, tobacco and accessories. At our visit it was still a construction site but it really looked promising. The area for the shop is large and there will also be space for a coffee-shop and, most exciting, in a separate room there will be a smokers’ lounge with a fully equipped bar. The inauguration will take place later this year and we will certainly bring you a report from that event.

Kungspipan was a Swedish patented pipe that was very popular around here in the 50s and 60s. Then it disappeared. We tell you a little about it and show some pictures.

We have also tested some tobaccos and a Norwegian member tells us about a thrilling visit to Copenhagen last summer.

Rökringar (Smoke Rings) no. 86 September 2012

The picture on the cover was taken at the Tobacco & Match Museum in Stockholm. As you can see it shows a smoking room in a wealthy middle-class home at the end of the 19s century. This room is a part of the permanent exhibition in the museum. But we also have visited a temporary exhibition there, inaugurated on the 15s of May, called Swedish Delight. This exhibition is about the few pleasures in life available for the lower classes of the community in the 19s century, and also about the complicated attitude towards all kinds of pleasures and enjoyments at that time.

As usual at this time of the year a new club-pipe is offered to our members. This time the pipes are made by the Danish pipemaker Mogens “Johs” Johansen. We are very glad that Johs was willing to accept this assignment, especially as he made our very first club-pipe in 1993. The pipe is offered in two finishes, smooth and sandblasted, and every member is allowed to buy one of each.

Our annual meeting took place in Gothenburg in early June. The day started with a trip on the river in an old steamship built in 1920. Most of us had never experienced something like that before, so that trip will be long remembered. The day ended with a delicious barbeque. A memorable day, indeed!

We can also show a beautiful cigar-holder made from meerschaum with a stem from amber. It was made by Gudbrand Larsen in Norway, who in 1844 started a pipe-factory in the city of Lillehammer, a factory that existed until 1979.

It is always a pleasure to present a new pipemaker. Hans “Masen” Brandt, living in the city of Hedemora, has only been making pipes for about a year, but has already a very well equipped workshop. So far most of his pipes have been sold to friends and personal customers, but hopefully we will hear a lot more about him in the near future.

Earlier this year Rick Newcombe released a new book called Still Searching for Pipe Dreams. This book is much longed-for as a follow-up to his last book In Search of Pipe Dreams, first published in 2003. Since then it has been printed in several new editions and is one of the most sold books ever in this field. Like the first one this new book is about meetings with pipemakers, collectors and other enthusiasts, about pipe-shows, his favorite pipes, discussions with likeminded friends and a lot more. Rick has a positive attitude and all of it is most encouraging and entertaining to read. An extra plus is that Rick’s English is straight, simple and easy to understand even for us foreigners. The book may be ordered from Sumner Books (www.sumnerbooks.com) and also Rick’s first book is available there.

In this issue we also make a trip back to the time of WW II. We have found some magazines from those days called Tobakshandlaren (The Tobacconist). In those days there were no bans about smoking, rather the opposite, but they had another severe problems caused by the war – the lack of good pipes and tobacco.

Earlier this year we proudly could tell that Tom Eltang, a member of our board, had been elected as a member of the Confrérie des Maître Pipers de Saint Claude. And now we have the pleasure to announce that another of our members, the pipemaker Poul Winsløw, also has become a member of this prestigious French order. Poul is the fifth member from Scandinavia and we hearty congratulate him to this well-deserved honor.

The cover shows a sign used by a clay pipemaker in Gouda, Holland, in the 18s century and an article in the magazine tells us more about it. Inspired by this picture our Viking, Sven Tveshag, has change his usual bent for a long-stemmed clay pipe.

The annual Danish Championship took place on the 18s of March and a veteran in the field, Jan Lærkeborg, became the champion and this was his second victory. The last time he won was in 1999. Eight members from our club took part in the competition and the best result was achieved by Bengt Carlson, who ended as number 20 among 109 participants.

The book Scandinavian Pipemakers was released at a party in Tom Eltang’s workshop on the 13s of April. Invited were the pipemakers pictured in the book and some other guests. We were glad to find that more than 30 pipemakers took part in the event. A lot of pictures from it can be seen in this issue. The edition released at this party is limited and numbered and only for sale within the Nordic countries. An international edition is published by Briar Books Press and was released at the international pipe show in Chicago in the beginning of May.

So far Heinrich Leopold Jensen is not very well known internationally, but he is selling quite a lot of pipes in Denmark and Sweden. With the high quality of the handicraft and his sense of design we are sure that a lot more will be heard about him in the future. We bring you a presentation of him and his work.

Pipe-smoking detectives are quite common, even if more so in older literature than today. An article tells us about some old Swedish detective novels and of course the detectives in them are pipe-smokers. There will be more articles in this series in future issues.

Pipes from the German company Vauen have not been common in Sweden, but an importer has now started to market them here. We can show you some of the shapes that will be imported and found in many Swedish shops.

Scandinavian Tobacco Group, the owner of Stanwell, has changed to another importer on the Swedish market. That means that there will be a change in the assortment and shapes imported.  We show you a selection of the assortment on the Swedish market just now.

Finally, last year’s club pipe was made by Lars Jönsson (Lomma pipes) and was a tremendous success and in this issue Lars says thank you for all the positive response he has got from the buyers.

Jan

Annually our club is arranging a pipe auction and last year this auction took place in the beginning of November in Malmö and we can show you some pictures from that event. As told in earlier issues of our magazine, we have had a lottery among our members for the Jubilee pipe that last year was made by nine Swedish pipemakers. The draw in that lottery took place at said auction and we are happy to show a picture of the lucky winner, Bengt Fahlstedt, enjoying his first smoke in that very special pipe.

One of our members, Percy Eriksson, spends a month now and then in China – not curious as he is married to a Chinese woman. In an illustrated article he gives us an initiated picture from that large country and the situation for pipe-smokers there (and how difficult it may be to find ordinary pipe cleaners!).

The well-known pipe brands Hilson and Big Ben are made by Gubbels pipe factory in Roermond, Holland. Last year, when the World Cup in pipe-smoking was arranged in Holland, two of our members, Mikael Petersson and Sten Klang, met the manager of that factory and were invited for a visit. A report with many pictures is found in this issue.

The Tobacco & Match museum in Stockholm has been mentioned several times in our magazine and in November last year we got a most welcome reason to visit that lovely museum again. The reason was that a new tobacco shop was to be inaugurated. Since long the museum has had a shop, but now it was restored into a genuine tobacco shop from the last part of the 19s century. The shop carries a wide range of goods like cigars, snuff, clay pipes, cigar cutters, snuff boxes, matches, books and a lot more. Of a special interest are the goods made in the museum factory, cigars named Puck, snuff in bulk and clay pipes. Shortly it will also be possible to have your own mixture blended there. A lot of people had gathered for the inauguration, champagne and snacks were served and everybody was in high spirits. This museum is one of the last of its kind in the world and is really well worth a visit for everyone visiting Stockholm.

We can also show some new pipes from Savinelli, all of them now available on the Swedish market and a new series of tobacco from My Own Blend that has also been introduced here. One of our local pipe clubs (MGKK) has been lecturing about pipes and tobacco to a society of young men and a well-known and experienced wine taster, Michael Sporrong, has tried his taste buds on tobacco. He started with some old, well-matured tobacco, one of them about 80 years old, and we will certainly hear more about his tests in the future. Our expert on antique pipes, Johan Hedborg, tells us the story about another interesting pipe in his collection.

This and much more is found in this issue of Rökringar. To foreign members of our club, an English Summary is attached with every new issue.

Jan