I am going to share a wonderful experience I had during the Holidays, but first I will give a little background to the tale. In the early 80's I had a customer who was blind who would come into the store with his golden lab guide dog Tammy and would ask to "look" at some pipes. I would pull up a chair and Don would sit down and I would bring various pipes to him for his perusal. Don never ceased to amaze me with his ability to examine and "see" these pipes and his descriptions of the pipes were nothing short of amazing. He had a wonderful sense of grain patterns particularly on the sandblasted pieces and after a short period of time would make his choice which was always outstanding. Don helped me to "look" at pipes with a different sense and a new appreciation of their subtle idiosyncrasies. Now let's jump ahead 25 plus years.

During this past holiday period I had a regular customer, who is also blind, show up and like Don he wanted to "look" at some new pipes. I have sold various pipes to Wayne before, but he asked me what I liked. During December I usually get in some Ser Jacopos which I really appreciate their style, attention to detail and particularly their sandblasted pieces. There was one pipe, a beautiful sandblasted billiard with a large bowl, that was in my top three of all the Ser Jacopos we had received. I was telling Wayne about this pipe and all the qualities it contained: weight, balance, draft hole drilling, capacity and particularly its beautiful deep blast. I placed the pipe in Wayne 's hand and we proceeded to "look" at it. Taking his finger I had him feel the beautiful straight grain and circumferential rings on the bowl, then we worked our way up the side of the shank and ended up at the bottom of the bowl, where as there should be with all this straight grain, a concentration of birds eye. I knew I really liked this pipe, but it was not until Wayne and I "looked" at it together that I really saw this pipe. Wayne ended up buying this beauty and I ended up privileged to have had such a wonderful and enlightening experience.

I hope you can use this example as inspiration on your next buying expedition and it might be fun to pull out some of the old regular pipes and to explore them with a new sense of vision.

Good Luck