drbridges
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Doug Allen's A NEW TAKE ON DR. GRABOWA NEW TAKE ON DR. GRABOW
Doug Allen, OPC member and President of Sparta Industries, delivered the following speech at the 1995 PCI show in St. Louis. Hearing about it, I prevailed upon Doug to let it appear in print first in the OPC newsletter, and he graciously agreed. Reader comments and replies are encouraged.
The Honorable Dr. Grabow
Doug Allen
This evening, gathered with this large group of pipe lovers, I'd like
to honor the greatest of pipes--Dr. Grabow. Surely, you're saying, I must
have taken leave of my senses to call Dr. Grabow the greatest of pipes.
Well, I've made a claim, so let me try to justify my outrageous statement.
In our country, one measure of greatness has always been size: the
bigger, the better; the more, the merrier. Dr. Grabow sells nearly one
million pipes a year. But, you argue, certainly in this case more is not
necessarily merrier. Simply because the masses smoke a Dr. Grabow doesn't
mean it should be classed as a great pipe. Certainly, you insist, a Dr.
Grabow cannot be judged as comparable to the Mastro de Paja that my good
friend Thomas Cristiano is showing this weekend. Nor would anyone compare
the collectability of a Dr. Grabow to Steve Anderson's handmades. Why then
am I standing here talking about Dr. Grabow? Can it be the construction?
Yes, in many ways the methods of making a Dr. Grabow are exactly the
same as those the fine Italian artisans employ. Of course there are
differences. We don't spend as much time sanding a Dr. Grabow as the
Lorenzetti Brothers might, for example. Our bits, though we use some
lucite, may not be as fancy as Cesare Barontini produces for our
Mastercraft Aldo Velani line. The most similar feature between a Dr.
Grabow and the exquisite pipes many of you are smoking tonight is the wood.
Every Dr. Grabow pre-smoked pipe starts with exactly the same block of
briar as does your favorite. Yet this lowly block of wood is why I speak
about the greatness of Dr. Grabow.
Before I finish that thought about Dr. Grabow, let me talk for a few
minutes about the wood. The White Heather (Erica Arborea) grows in the
sandy soil of the mountains ringing the Mediterranean Sea. After about
five hot summers and mild winters, a small fibrous growth starts forming
just above the roots. After many years (even centuries) of growth, the
burl is ready to be harvested. This harvest is a time-consuming,
back-breaking job. During one trip to Greece, I clambered over the hills
to observe the workers (paid by the weight of their finds) dig these burls
using only a pick and lots of elbow grease. Thansis, a typical worker,
uses his family burro to move his wood about 15 kilometers to his meeting
spot with George Siderakis, the mill owner. The burls are washed and then
kept wet, to avoid splitting, until the cutter is ready to change the burl
into briar blocks. Imagine sitting in a loft all day with your feet
dangling down and an 18-inch saw blade whirling at a couple thousand RPMs
near your crotch. If that isn't enough, the wood they're cutting is wet
and still a little muddy. Do you remember the last time you tried to cut a
slightly damp 2x4? It's tough, dirty work and the workers get paid only
for the usable block they cut during the long day. As the blocks are cut,
the cutter grades the wood based on visible grain and imperfections
showing. During all this, the wood must be kept wet.
When a fairly large amount of cut wood has been accumulated, it is
boiled in a large copper vat for 24 hours. The boiling removes most of the
natural oils from the wood. This is the beginning of the break-in process
for your new pipe. Only after boiling can the wood-drying process begin.
At the saw mill, the cut blocks are allowed to dry for approximately 90
days. After drying, the blocks are sorted by size and bagged for shipping
to a pipemaker.
Once we receive a shipment of briar, we continue the drying in special
rooms for another 90 days minimum. For the highest grade pipes, we dry the
wood for at least a year before turning and then another six months after
turning but before any sanding or other work. This insures you the
easiest, most enjoyable break-in period and the most pleasurable smoking
experience overall.
I know you think I've gotten off track by talking about how the wood
is harvested when I started talking about the greatness of Dr. Grabow
pre-smoked pipes. The wood is the greatness of Dr. Grabow. No, we don't
use all straight-grain, perfect blocks for Dr. Grabow. Many of the more
perfect blocks are used in our production of the Alpha USA series and the
Blue Ridge Collection. Because we buy almost all the world's production of
non-straight-grain and less-than-perfect briar blocks, the price of your
favorite Dunhill is only in the thousand-dollar neighborhood, or you only
have to pay several hundred dollars or more for that exquisite Mastro de
Paja.
We buy slightly over half the world's total briar wood production. If
it weren't for the Dr. Grabow drug-store pipe, the briar wood industry
along the Mediterranean sea would all but disappear. This in turn would
drive up the price of wood far beyond what the market would allow, thus
ending the pipe business as we know it today. We know this is true
because, eight years ago [1987], Sparta Industries found itself vastly overstocked
with briar and quit buying for three years. During that time, six of 21
small briar-processing factories--29% of the total--closed their doors, and
five of them did not re-open when we began buying briar again after three
years.
So, as with many things in our world, our small, humble entry into the
market paves the way for the rest. Richard Nixon coined a phrase that
perfectly describes Dr. Grabow--the silent majority.
Don't misunderstand me. Even though Dr. Grabow is a great pipe, I
still save my pennies in hopes of one day affording one of Tom's beautiful
Mastro de Paja pipes. But I hope that, while you puff on your favorite,
you'll more fully appreciate the role Dr. Grabow plays in the world of
smoking pipes.
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