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Post by Darin on Jun 4, 2017 12:41:00 GMT -5
Dino, thank you so much for taking the time to post all those great pics! It truly felt like I was taking an "armchair tour".  Your commitment to purchase their products is commendable and I believe I'll join you with the pipe cleaners. This last batch of BJ Longs had way too much loose fluff anyway! LOL |
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Post by antb on Jun 5, 2017 1:38:16 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing this with us, Dino!
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Post by peteguy on Jun 5, 2017 12:20:40 GMT -5
Thanks for the pics as some of us will never get there. Awesome thread bro!
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Post by Lady Margaret on Jun 5, 2017 20:26:47 GMT -5
Wow. Superb job Dino, apparently you should have been a tour guide. Excellent narration, clear pictures - I didn't know Dr. Grabows were advertised as pre-smoked. Very sad to hear the cleaners keep the doors open, but if it works... Really liked the 'It's the smart thing to do' ad. I'm smoking a basket bulldog right now, and by golly, I do feel smarter. I guess their pipe cleaners are Dills? PS I had a couple of Dr. Grabows, but they went out to poor or deployed folk. I might have kept them if I'd seen this first
simple solution, buy more! lol.
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Zach
Pro Member
If you can't send money, send tobacco.
Posts: 4,364
First Name: Zach
Favorite Pipe: Too many currently, bound to change
Favorite Tobacco: Haunted Bookshop, Big 'N' Burley, Pegasus, Habana Daydream, OJK, Rum Twist, FVF, Escudo, Orlik Golden Sliced, Kendal Flake, Ennerdale
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Post by Zach on Jun 26, 2017 10:10:48 GMT -5
Coincidentally, I just found Dill pipe cleaners and Grabow filters suddenly being sold at my local Kroger. Over the years, I'd never seen them sold there, so maybe that's a positive that they may possibly be getting back into more stores and locations? I bought two packs just to support the fact they were carrying them. The store had to card me for my ID just because I was buying pipe cleaners and it's a tobacco product in their inventory system.
This is an excellent set of photos from your tour. I have a handful of Dr. Grabows, all from my grandfather and all from the early 1960's up until about 1971. I'm looking forward to getting one of their big pipes and a few others now because I'd like to support the factory and an American company. Only problem is, it looks like they need a lot bigger demand surge to get them moving again. I'd also really, really like a Dr. Grabow bulldog and it is one of the rare sought after shapes in Grabows. All of my old Dr. Grabow pipes are excellent smokers, even the tiny pipes. They don't get enough credit for what they deserve, and how they've carried the factory pipe production for this country for decades now with no other American pipe factories left that I know of.
Thanks for the tour, really appreciate it. I've never understood why SmokingPipes hasn't carried a Dr. Grabow lineup of pipes. I prefer to only buy online from SmokingPipes when it comes to tobacco etailers, but I may have to order them from tobaccopipes.com I guess I should ask someone about it at SP.
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Post by danno44 on Jun 26, 2017 11:13:42 GMT -5
Thanks for posting and sharing the photos and information.
The filter and cleaner information, reminds me of Gillette, they didn't make their money off razors, but the blades. The driving force to move from DE, to the cartridge system. (Whole other topic and debate).
I only have one Dr G, my first Briar, a Grand Duke textured, which I break out on occasion. Sadly I've never tried the dill cleaners but knowing now that they make them, will try them out.
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Post by trailboss on Jun 26, 2017 11:41:59 GMT -5
Thanks for the great tour Dino, I missed it on the first go-around. I too will be buying their filters for my cobs and pipe cleaners also... might even pick up a few Pipes?
When CVS decided to take "the high road",🙄 declare themselves a "healthcare organization" (that still sells liquor, sugary snacks, junk food) they jettisoned anything related to smoking. I bought several Grabows at giveaway prices, but I never smoked any... they were all given to people that expressed an interest in smoking a pipe.
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Grimpeur
Junior Member
Posts: 239 
Favorite Pipe: The Falcon!
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Post by Grimpeur on Jun 26, 2017 12:05:49 GMT -5
Living in Canada, (aka "America's toque"), I wasn't exposed to the displays of Grabows in drugstores. I have wondered, given their smoking qualities, how my pipe story might have been written had I encountered them earlier in my piping career.
Just to be difficult: last pack of Dills cleaners I had were marked made in China; I will stick with the Longs, made in Rochester.
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Zach
Pro Member
If you can't send money, send tobacco.
Posts: 4,364
First Name: Zach
Favorite Pipe: Too many currently, bound to change
Favorite Tobacco: Haunted Bookshop, Big 'N' Burley, Pegasus, Habana Daydream, OJK, Rum Twist, FVF, Escudo, Orlik Golden Sliced, Kendal Flake, Ennerdale
Location:
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Post by Zach on Jun 26, 2017 13:24:41 GMT -5
If I look at those Dill's I just bought and they say made in China, I'm never buying them again. They were $2 a pack for only 32 cleaners. Could've sworn it said they were from Sparta, NC but I will check tonight when I get home.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2017 13:30:45 GMT -5
I loved all the pictures, thanks so much for the tour. I inherited my Grandfathers pipes from the early 60's and have 3 Dr.Grabows. Even though the are just a few of us who are now converts, I'll be sure to buy this buy brand of pipe cleaners from now on.
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Post by TwelveAMnTX on Jun 26, 2017 16:33:22 GMT -5
Thanks for the "virtual tour" ... cool pics, it looks like a neat place to visit.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2017 21:26:04 GMT -5
Great post & appreciated. Given the medium they work with, that's a very clean factory/ work environment.
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Post by trailboss on Jun 27, 2017 14:16:41 GMT -5
I try to avoid buying Chinese whenever I can, but without wading into the politics of it all, sometimes it is unfeasible to make some stuff here...a lot bigger players in the market than Dr.Grabow set the tone for operational costs...I doubt that I have a single consumer electric product that is made domestically. I heard a market analyst say that if my Chinese Iphone were made here, I wouldn't be willing to pay for it. I did stop buying Red Wing boots though...most of them now are made in China, and I had a sole crack split sideways clean through. The local franchisee acted like my best friend when I bought them, a couple months later, he gave me the bum's rush to the door and told me it was a factory issue. Called Red Wing Minnesota and they told me it could only be handled through the franchisee!  That would have all been unthinkable in the past. If making the cleaners overseas allows the pipe making plant to stay open, I guess that it isn't such a bad tradeoff. I just checked my stash, Big ben pipe cleaners are made in Holland, Ream-N-Klean are made in China also. |
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Grimpeur
Junior Member
Posts: 239
Favorite Pipe: The Falcon!
Location:
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Post by Grimpeur on Jun 27, 2017 14:38:10 GMT -5
I try to avoid buying Chinese whenever I can, but without wading into the politics of it all, sometimes it is unfeasible to make some stuff here...a lot bigger players in the market than Dr.Grabow set the tone for operational costs...I doubt that I have a single consumer electric product that is made domestically. I heard a market analyst say that if my Chinese Iphone were made here, I wouldn't be willing to pay for it. I did stop buying Red Wing boots though...most of them now are made in China, and I had a sole crack split sideways clean through. The local franchisee acted like my best friend when I bought them, a couple months later, he gave me the bum's rush to the door and told me it was a factory issue. Called Red Wing Minnesota and they told me it could only be handled through the franchisee! That would have all been unthinkable in the past. If making the cleaners overseas allows the pipe making plant to stay open, I guess that it isn't such a bad tradeoff. I just checked my stash, Big ben pipe cleaners are made in Holland, Ream-N-Klean are made in China also. Went through the same thing with Sorel winter boots that used to be made locally. I would buy a pair every four or five years, until I got my last (in every way) pair that was made in Vietnam: I got two months out of them before they fell apart. And, adding insult to injury, there was no reduction in price...grrrrr! Glad I wasn't deep in the bush when they failed. I just feel sorry for Rochester: with Kodak all but gone, all they have left is the pipe cleaner industry! I think, anyhow. I never took advantage of the short-lived ferry that ran from Toronto to there. Apparently, neither did anyone else. Edit to include, before some wisenheimer beats me to it, the Longs tapered cleaners that I like so much? Made in China. |
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Post by trailboss on Jun 27, 2017 15:05:01 GMT -5
Most of mine are Tom And Jerrys
dist. by phillips and King
made by BJ Long Rochester
Macbaren package doesn't say.
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goose
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First Name: Sam
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Post by goose on Jun 27, 2017 18:34:23 GMT -5
Where is the factory located?
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Post by bonanzadriver on Jun 27, 2017 23:11:39 GMT -5
Where is the factory located? Goose, if you're asking where is the Dr. Grabow factory located??? It's in Sparta NC. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2017 0:05:48 GMT -5
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Post by bonanzadriver on Jun 28, 2017 0:40:24 GMT -5
Beautiful Briars made even more so because the were your grandpa's.
You're a lucky man brutha.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2017 12:29:28 GMT -5
My Grandpa had a smoking chair and a small rack of pipes on the table beside it that I always remembered. When I started back up smoking pipes, I remembered that my cousin and him smoked together, so I located him in Michigan and called him up. He didn't have my Grandfathers pipes. I was on the phone with my older brother one day and mentioned that I would like to have been able to have the old pipes, to which he replied that he had bought them at the estate auction. It was the only thing he bought at it, and that the had them in his basement. So he sent them to me. I then had them restored by one of the guys on PM, he is the one who took the nice pictures I posted above. I also got his chair that I kept for 20 years, then I got rid of it when I moved to NC. I deeply regret it as it was one of the most comfortable chairs I've ever sat in, it was a prime example of my ineffective thinking and poor judgement the has plagued me through the years. This is the complete rack as I received it 50 years after his passing.  |
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Post by trailboss on Jun 28, 2017 15:12:57 GMT -5
Them Grabows look top shelf, the family story is icing on that cake... now we need pictures of grandpa's chair.
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Post by trailboss on Jun 28, 2017 15:13:08 GMT -5
Duplicate.
I shot a greasegun and an mp5 full auto the other day... muscle memory.😉
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charl
Junior Member
Posts: 490
First Name: Charl
Favorite Pipe: Stannie/Svendborg
Favorite Tobacco: Old Gowrie
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Post by charl on Jun 29, 2017 1:24:01 GMT -5
Are Denicotea made by them then? Get those here in SA as well.
Thanks so much for all the photos! I always love to see pipe factories and workshops.
That factory does seem huge!
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Post by bonanzadriver on Jun 29, 2017 8:11:21 GMT -5
Are Denicotea made by them then? Get those here in SA as well. Thanks so much for all the photos! I always love to see pipe factories and workshops. That factory does seem huge! Charl, the factory is enormous. If I recall it's 100K to 200k sq feet. They lease out 1/2 of it to a Christmas ornament / tree company and also use part of their warehouse for other folks as well. When you think about it, when you go from over 440 employees down to 28, there's gonna be plenty of elbow room. |
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That would have all been unthinkable in the past.
