Smoking Tools: Rip-offs, switcheroos, knock-offs, and assorted other tobaccoland trickery

(Pipes and Tobaccos) ... It’s a sad but true fact that within that last 20-odd years of the 20th century, several assorted flim-flams were perpetrated on more than a handful of our pipe brethren, and some of these incidents profoundly and traumatically affected our small community. It was a period when it became evident that there was a new and unsettling dimension to the hobby that unnerved many: “getting over” on your fellow pipe man was eclipsing “getting along” with your fellow pipe man. It was a time when all us die-hard pipe smokers and collectors noticed a distinct absence of “sweetness and light” in Tobaccoland. It was a period in which a few rather clever minds used chicanery against the innocent and the unwitting, and became persona non grata, our own little rogues gallery, if you please. Continued