A fellow in Chicago named Chuck Gray was the top antique meer and amber repairman in America for years. Possibly the best in the world.
He retired about five years ago, leaving collectors of such pipes SOL.
(I do not mess with meers or amber as a categorical thing).
Then the COVID shitshow came along and required one of the world's top expert-fixers of computer controlled, multi-million-dollar commercial meat processing machines to work from home as much as possible for a while.
A situation that led to him deep-diving into the repair of one of his passions---antique meer and amber pipes---as a hobby.
(You can see where this is going, I'm sure)
Because he's smart as hell, flexible of thought process, loves challenges, and is massively passionate as a general thing about the slices of Life that interest him, he is now very probably---almost certainly, in fact---the closest thing to a new Chuck Gray that planet Earth has.
He does not have Chuck's hands-on experience in "specimen count" terms, of course, but that will come with time. Everything else is there.
More, actually. The new guy has many skills and attributes that Chuck did not.
Bottom line to the OP: listen to Rustie
