Twelve Men Will Be Thus Honored

[Briar Lee]

Taken from the 1947 Kaywoodie Catalog

https://pipedia.org/images/6/61/Kaywoodie_1947.pdf

Now, before Kaywoodie could thus honor twelve men they’d have to find one to spend as much as a new Packard on a $2,500 set of pipes.
$2,500 in 1947 would be near $35,000 today. They might have only made that one for the advertisement.

Kaywoodie still exists today and it would be fascinating to see any records of how many of these sets were sold and to whom.

But in its heyday Kaywoodie was the premier pipe maker on earth, without doubt.

 

[Bbailey324]

Thanks for posting, I really enjoyed reading that link you attached. Can you imagine opening that present on Christmas day?

 

[alaskanpiper]

IIRC, someone had one of these sets at a pipeshow fairly recently.

 

[Briar Lee]

IIRC, someone had one of these sets at a pipeshow fairly recently.

During the thirties you’ll sonetimes see a Kaywoodie advertisement stating, pipes from $3.50 to $1,000.

And my beloved Ithaca Model 37 shotguns had a thousand dolar grade.

Xxxxxx
Families in the United States had an average (median) income of $3,000 i n 1947, according to estimates issued today by J. C. Capt, Director, Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce. This represents an increase of about 20 percent over the figure of $2,500 for 1944
Xxxxxx



The above shows what’s so difficult about inflation calculators.

No matter how strapped and pressured we feel today, our real incomes are higher now.

When the average family earned $3,000 a year the ones that could buy $2,500 pipe sets were rich as kings. Those numbers today would be if the average family made $42,000 a year and the pipe set was $35,000. A new Packard was $2,500 then.



Today the local car lot near you, has a hard time keeping $75,000 pickups on the lot, with average family income over $90,000.

The people who bought pipe sets that cost the same as brand new Packards already had a Packard or two, and a garage to park it in.

Their families didn’t toss those sets in the trash, either.

But to find one with all 28 pipes would be quite a find, I’d think.

 

[alaskanpiper]

During the thirties you’ll sonetimes see a Kaywoodie advertisement stating, pipes from $3.50 to $1,000.

And my beloved Ithaca Model 37 shotguns had a thousand dolar grade.

Xxxxxx
Families in the United States had an average (median) income of $3,000 i n 1947, according to estimates issued today by J. C. Capt, Director, Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce. This represents an increase of about 20 percent over the figure of $2,500 for 1944
Xxxxxx

View attachment 275193

The above shows what’s so difficult about inflation calculators.

No matter how strapped and pressured we feel today, our real incomes are higher now.

When the average family earned $3,000 a year the ones that could buy $2,500 pipe sets were rich as kings. Those numbers today would be if the average family made $42,000 a year and the pipe set was $35,000. A new Packard was $2,500 then.

View attachment 275196

Today the local car lot near you, has a hard time keeping $75,000 pickups on the lot, with average family income over $90,000.

The people who bought pipe sets that cost the same as brand new Packards already had a Packard or two, and a garage to park it in.

Their families didn’t toss those sets in the trash, either.

But to find one with all 28 pipes would be quite a find, I’d think.

Indeed.

 

[autumnfog]

That is a beautiful advertisement from a bygone era!
If ads looked like that I wouldn't have to try to actively avoid them.
I'm not saying everything was better yesterday. But, some aesthetics certainly were.

 

[daveinlax]

I saw at least one of these sets displaying years ago at the Chicago and St Louis pipe shows. I know at the Chicago show the owner jokingly had the original price listed.

 

[Briar Lee]

Look at how they advertised.

1941

 

[Briar Lee]

I saw at least one of these sets displaying years ago at the Chicago and St Louis pipe shows. I know at the Chicago show the owner jokingly had the original price listed.

I hope the dead people that paid new Packard Super 8 prices for a set of pipes smoked the damned things, while they could.

Did they, that you saw?

 

[daveinlax]

It’s been years but I remember the set/sets were unsmoked. I think the collector might have been Larry Vsomething from Indiana???

 

[Briar Lee]

Those sets had to have been bought for special occasions . To get one, you had to contact Kaywoodie. Each one has a silent, hidden story behind it. Wasn’t that a happy day, when they took delivery of a $2,500 set of pipes?

During 1960 the hog market went up to World War Two levels, or higher.

My conservative father lost $7,000 as his share of a three man joint venture where the market crashed just before the fat hogs were ready to ship to Springfield for auction. When he died in 1971 his credit life paid off the still unpaid balance.

But yesterday my wife and I were at an elderly friend’s home we stopped by to wish a happy new year. He’s a greater story teller than I’ll ever be. His home is sort of a shrine to his girl friend who played in a movie with Kim Novak in the fifties.

I noticed a glorious Frigidaire Flair range in his kitchen and asked for the story.

In 1960 he was away at college in Montana but his father hit the top of the market selling hogs.

His younger brother and his mother drove a hundred miles to Vandalia and she picked out a full line of the best Frigidaire appliances for their home. The men came from Vandalia and set them all up. He might have some of the manuals, somewhere.

The dishwasher, washer and dryer are long gone, the refrigerator is still in a barn, the freezer is in the basement, and this indescribably luxurious Flair range is still in service, the top of the line with all options. Samantha used one in “Bewiched”, and there’s sort of a Flair range cult today.


The lights and the clock and all gadgets still work, after 63 years. They came with special pots and pans, as part of the set, and those are in the storage cabinet below.




Somewhere, far off, I could almost hear the choir sing “The Old Rugged Cross” as he told of how happy he was to come home for Christmas 1960 and his Mama show him all those new appliances, a few years before his younger brother was drafted and went to Vietnam.

He came home, but he wasn’t ever quite the same afterwards, had to go to the Veteran’s Hospital a lot.
The construction workers whistled at his Mama, which bothered him but she didn’t mind, she was used to it.

Xxxxx

So I'll cherish the old rugged cross (rugged cross)

Till my trophies at last I lay down

I will cling to the old rugged cross

And exchange it some day for a crown