The year 2022 Texas Pipe Show took place on Saturday, November 12th in front of the Tobacco Cabana Pipe & Tobacco Shop located in a strip mall in Cedar Hill, just outside of Forth Worth. The show organizers were a large group of members of pipe clubs in Dallas/Forth Worth, Houston and Austin. The combined efforts of those ladies and gentlemen to ensure a successful show for the patrons, absolutely nailed it! Because the actual show took place under a long line of tents, weather was a concern because the night before the Texas Pipe Show, there was a roaring and windy rain storm. However, when daybreak hit, nothing but sunny skies and a light breeze. It was a little cooler than my old bones would have liked – temps in the mid to high 50’s, but I did wear my longjohns, thickest pair of blue jeans, and a couple of layers of shirts under my jacket, so I was well prepared. And, since Cedar Hill is only about an hour and twenty minutes from my home in Robinson (just south of Waco), my horse never tired!
There were a lot of Texas pipe makers at the show, including Bill Walther, Trey Rice and Colin Rigsby, just to name a few. And many vendors with tables along the tent walkway were offering a lot of great looking pipes and tobaccos as well as other related items. I spent several hours looking over the available pipes from the Texas pipe makers, and after much debate, decided to pick up a beautiful Trey Rice natural tanblast (shown in photo on the far left). I’ve already smoked this beauty several times and and am super pleased. I loved the blast and shape – a Dublin with thick bowl and Ivorite shank trim. Although easily a group-5 in size, it weighed just over 42-grams, and is feather light and drilled perfectly. And to the right of the pipe is a photo of Tray (on the far right), posing with a couple of other folks after we consummated our deal. If you’ve never considered a Trey Rice pipe, you might want to consider the work of that young man – just super and thanks for the pipe, Trey!
The Missouri Meerschaum Company was the sponsor of the annual Slow Smoking Contest again this year at the Texas Pipe Show. Missouri Meerschaum makes the world’s finest corncob pipes, but for this year’s event, they provided clay pipes in handsome presentation boxes. This is the pipe I used in the contest. It was the first time I ever competed using a clay pipe and went out shortly after the 7-minute mark. Very embarrassing! The winner lasted over half an hour. And since this was a UPCA sanctioned contest, the winner now gets an all expense paid trip to the Chicago Show next May to participate in the national slow smoking contest. So, I lost out on a free trip to Chicago next year. Oh well…
Another very happy Texan at the show was Colin Rigsby. Not only is Colin an established pipe maker of many years, he is also a pipe historian. So, I thought it was fitting that he won the raffle’s 7-day set of unsmoked year 1988 Ashton pipes made by the great William “Ashton” Taylor. Each pipe was fitted with a Sterling Silver ring, and Taylor himself also made the wooden and leather case along with Mr. Taylor’s own personal framed letter of authenticity. All of the pipes were large – from XXX up to LX, and were mostly in the famous Brindle finish, but a couple were Pebble Grains. Colin let out a Texas sized war hoop when he discovered that he had the winning raffle ticket and I don’t blame him! That’s Colin showing off his new cased set of unsmoked Ashtons in this photo.
A huge thank you again to the show organizers of the Texas Pipe Show, particularly Chris Dumoulin, James Foster & Colin Rigsby. I watched them work their tails off the entire day of the show, and can only imagine all the hard work they put into putting on the event over the many months leading up to it. Congratulations to those three outstanding gentlemen for a job well done!
And now I will leave you with more pictures from the show, and if you’ve never attended the Texas Pipe show, next year might be worth your time. Come on down, ya’ll!
