Back from the Ashes - The Falcon story

Being a bit of a Falcon fan-boy it was a matter of fact that I had to read K.A. Worth´s book about the brand. I passed up on a printed version a while ago as it was quite expensive but I found out that there is a very reasonable priced Kindle-version on Amazon readily available. After having a bad experience with Amazons E-Reader and Amazon in regard of complains with the said device I was not particular keen on buying another one. But there is an app for everything, isn´t it? This one is even free and so I proceeded to download both the app and the book.

Well, what can I say without being too harsh in my review? Of course there is not much information regarding this brand which is particularly strange as the Falcon is the most sold pipe in the world. It honors Mrs. Worth that she took the trouble of rummaging through large piles of her late grandfathers paperwork to unearth the history of this great invention. But to be honest if you expect technical details or anecdotes about the pipe, famous names who smoked them or even details of the early American Falcon history you´ll be disappointed. We don´t even learn if the great G.L. Hunt was a pipe smoker himself! Instead we learn a lot about the formation of the English branch and production of the Falcon . Page by page about contracts and production numbers and the hassles that the business has to overcome put the readers patience to the test.

The nomenclature of the different die casters is strewn within the text and it would have been very nice from a collectors standpoint to have a chart or something the like for reference. A timeline on the appearance of the several models would have been nice too but no such things are included. Instead the book seems to be something like an accountant would have loved to read. Figures upon figures, extracts form business letters and stories of the occasional move of parts of the company to another place.

I don´t want to appear unjust in my evaluation here but I had hoped for a very different book. As I said, we owe Mrs. Worth that we have some infomation about the brand at least but if you are looking for an entertaining read about a pipe brand you better move one. Thank god that the pipes are much better than the book! At Euro 3,09 it doesn´t do much damage to your wallet though, so if you´re curious give it a go anyhow.