Dating from the late forties to early fifties, there is a Lane Limited flier on eBay.
Lookie here:
Wonder who made those for Lane?.
Lookie here:
Wonder who made those for Lane?.
Lane Limited Benchmade $10 Algerian
- Thread starter Briar Lee
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We're children allowed to work in factories back then?Dating from the late forties to early fifties, there is a Lane Limited flier on eBay.
Lookie here:
View attachment 273544
Wonder who made those for Lane?.
We're children allowed to work in factories back then?
During law school we studied the labor practices of various employers finally subject to the 1938 Fair Labor Act.
The incredible inhumanity of the employers was matched only by the seeming willingness of parents to send their kids to work for wages an adult would starve.
United States v. Darby Lumber Co. - Wikipedia
It so moved the conservatives on the Supreme Court the decision was unanimous.
From the photos and articles on Robert L Marx, he paid good wages to skilled adults.
Was it that Karl Marx guy you always talk about? I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about politics on the forum!Wonder who made those for Lane?.
The good ole days were not that good for many, many people.
That Lane Limited flier has as many $1.50 pipes in it as online tobacco sellers have $29 pipes today.
If they didn’t occasionally sell a big $10 Benchmade Algerian they’d not stock or advertise them.
My bucket is filling up with $$15 Marxmans from that era.
I’d guess most were gifts.
My old neighbor used to love to tell the story how in 1938 his father worked for a dollar a day when he found farm work.
And when he was a senior in high school in 1948 they hired him at a dollar an hour to build a new golf course in our little town.
Not everybody was poor, and World War Two flat out ended the Great Depression.
Please keep political comments/historical "facts" to yourself.
On that same flier is evidence it came out either during WW2 or Korea. Likely early World War Two, no mention of briar shortages and the reference to ”an overseas fighting area” instead of just Korea. It’s hard to say. To send a pipe and tobacco to the boys at war, you had to order by September 15 to get it to him by Christmas.
Lane is still in business today.
Fancy straight grain pipes cost the same $10 as gnarly Benchmades.
Best grade tobacco was $2 a pound and “Best of the Rest” only a dollar.
But all prices are postpaid.
The inflation calculators we use today are not precise, but are generally the best we have to go by.
$10 in 1942 is about $188 today, but in 1952 only $115.
One of the problems all the tobacco sellers and pipe makers had, was a $10 pipe in 1942 was likely still $10 in 1952.
Wally Frank was still selling dollar pipes in the sixties.
Lane is still in business today.
Fancy straight grain pipes cost the same $10 as gnarly Benchmades.
Best grade tobacco was $2 a pound and “Best of the Rest” only a dollar.
But all prices are postpaid.
The inflation calculators we use today are not precise, but are generally the best we have to go by.
$10 in 1942 is about $188 today, but in 1952 only $115.
One of the problems all the tobacco sellers and pipe makers had, was a $10 pipe in 1942 was likely still $10 in 1952.
Wally Frank was still selling dollar pipes in the sixties.
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Prince Albert offered a free Dr. Grabow with pouches of Prince Albert in the early 70s. My dad got many of his pipes Grandpa Pidgeons in Bridgeton, MO that way.
The store was a master class in old time discount store with everything you could want for your cars engine, jewelry, EVERYTHING.
HOODS, which was a messy mess of a department store adapted and evolved to become this:
hoodshomecenters.com
They survived. But they started out with nothing but Junk.
Quality Home Goods, Low Prices | Hoods Discount Home Center
Not your typical home improvement store! Come to your local Hoods Discount Home Center to discover top quality at low prices. New items arriving daily!
hoodshomecenters.com
They survived. But they started out with nothing but Junk.
Another old time hardware store also evolved from a place of dark and dank spaces to this:
www.brannekyhardware.com
The lesson: Adapt or die!
Home | Branneky Hardware
Branneky Hardware has been in business since 1857; The sixth oldest running hardware store in America. View our history, staff, news, and much more on our new website!
www.brannekyhardware.com
The lesson: Adapt or die!
Pipe Lover’s Magazine reported that in the early war period of America mobilizing for WW2 there was an rationing study conducted that found 10 million pipe smokers (out of 132 million) that bought three new briar pipes a year. That’s a big percentage of adult men. 30 million new briar pipes a year sold.
Further reading that Lane flier, it’s early WW2. There’s a reference to “pre war” and look at these bargains all made from 150 year old Algerian brair.
Pipes, tobacco and cigarettes were not rationed officially, but were price controlled.
By the end of the war Pipe Lover’s Magazine reported about half of domestic pipes were made of “domestic briar” (Mission Briar or Mountain Laurel mostly).
They went right back to Mediterranean briar in just a few years.
In 1965 the government did a survey and found 14% of adult males smoked a pipe. The last one was in 2014 and it was about one per cent.
Today there is maybe one per cent of imported and American made briar pipes as sold in 1940.
What we don’t likely see as much are the bottom of the barrel briar pipes.
Further reading that Lane flier, it’s early WW2. There’s a reference to “pre war” and look at these bargains all made from 150 year old Algerian brair.
Pipes, tobacco and cigarettes were not rationed officially, but were price controlled.
By the end of the war Pipe Lover’s Magazine reported about half of domestic pipes were made of “domestic briar” (Mission Briar or Mountain Laurel mostly).
They went right back to Mediterranean briar in just a few years.
In 1965 the government did a survey and found 14% of adult males smoked a pipe. The last one was in 2014 and it was about one per cent.
Today there is maybe one per cent of imported and American made briar pipes as sold in 1940.
What we don’t likely see as much are the bottom of the barrel briar pipes.
1-Q has been the biggest selling bulk pipe tobacco for decades, and it’s about $30 a pound. So are most other Lane aromatics.
$30 today is about $1.59 in 1942.
Lane got $2 a pound for their best and $1 a pound for left overs in 1942, the rest in the middle.
Not much has changed except inflation.
Definitely this was a WW2 flier.
Here’s why our pipes say “Imported Briar” instead of “Genuine Briar” or no mention of briar at all.
If those were Imported Briar Lane would have been proud to state that fact during World War Two.
Here’s why our pipes say “Imported Briar” instead of “Genuine Briar” or no mention of briar at all.
If those were Imported Briar Lane would have been proud to state that fact during World War Two.
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During the war America still had imports.
From September 1939 to December 1941 America was a neutral nation, and Italy was neutral until June 1940.
A cargo ship full of briar was not a lawful target, at any time during the war. It also for Germans wouldn’t be worth a precious torpedo.
My old friend Jack used to tell about coffee rationing during WW2.
Coffee boats going towards America or returning from South America generally were not attacked by German U boats.
They were often neutral ships carrying neutral goods, designed only to carry coffee. And more importantly they weren’t worth a torpedo. After they used all their torpedoes a U boat became just a boat, and had to return to base.
But a German sub shelled a coffee boat with her deck gun in sight of the East Coast and being full of coffee beans, burned for days in full view of all the newspaper reporters.
And guess what happened?
The public ran out and emptied the shelves of unrationed coffee.
So coffee made the ration list, a pound every three weeks. And those who didn’t drink coffee bought their pound anyway. Having bought it, they drank it and developed a coffee habit, or traded it, or hoarded coffee.
Finally a wise bureaucrat in the rationing department required the merchant to open the can at the point of sale, and within weeks coffee was off the ration lists. There never really was a shortage of coffee in the first place.
With briar, after the liberation of Algeria in late 1942 and the surrender of Italy in 1943 there likely was a trickle of briar coming back in merchant ships.
Yet the domestic briar was undoubtedly cheaper. It could have been cured quickly, and kiln dried, and not aged, but for price controlled dollar pipes the makers used it.
When the war in Europe ended Pipe Lover’s Magazine was of the opinion there would be a permanent market for California and North Carolina domestic briar for lower priced pipes.
That didn’t happen.
The customers demanded Imported Briar stamped on their pipes, where it remains still today,
From September 1939 to December 1941 America was a neutral nation, and Italy was neutral until June 1940.
A cargo ship full of briar was not a lawful target, at any time during the war. It also for Germans wouldn’t be worth a precious torpedo.
My old friend Jack used to tell about coffee rationing during WW2.
Coffee boats going towards America or returning from South America generally were not attacked by German U boats.
They were often neutral ships carrying neutral goods, designed only to carry coffee. And more importantly they weren’t worth a torpedo. After they used all their torpedoes a U boat became just a boat, and had to return to base.
But a German sub shelled a coffee boat with her deck gun in sight of the East Coast and being full of coffee beans, burned for days in full view of all the newspaper reporters.
And guess what happened?
The public ran out and emptied the shelves of unrationed coffee.
So coffee made the ration list, a pound every three weeks. And those who didn’t drink coffee bought their pound anyway. Having bought it, they drank it and developed a coffee habit, or traded it, or hoarded coffee.
Finally a wise bureaucrat in the rationing department required the merchant to open the can at the point of sale, and within weeks coffee was off the ration lists. There never really was a shortage of coffee in the first place.
With briar, after the liberation of Algeria in late 1942 and the surrender of Italy in 1943 there likely was a trickle of briar coming back in merchant ships.
Yet the domestic briar was undoubtedly cheaper. It could have been cured quickly, and kiln dried, and not aged, but for price controlled dollar pipes the makers used it.
When the war in Europe ended Pipe Lover’s Magazine was of the opinion there would be a permanent market for California and North Carolina domestic briar for lower priced pipes.
That didn’t happen.
The customers demanded Imported Briar stamped on their pipes, where it remains still today,
Would they, though? Not all of the Mediterranean briar-having countries were ones Lane might've wanted to be associated with during that time.