Pipe Auctions

Pipe auctions are sales in which pipes and tobacciana change hands through open bidding. What circulates through these sales is most often not single pieces but dispersing collections and the inventories of closing museums. Because signed carvings, documented pieces, and out-of-production examples have frequently entered the record for the first time through such a catalog, the auction is also one of the primary sources for the history of pipe collecting.

Tobacciana being recognized as a category in its own right at auction dates back only to the late 1970s.

The Saleroom's Filtering Logic

An auction house takes goods on consignment from the owner and earns a commission on the sale price. For this reason it places in its catalog only the goods it expects to draw lively bidding; a piece that fails to meet that expectation is turned away. The tobacciana seen in saleroom catalogs therefore represents not the whole of the material in circulation but a narrow upper slice of it. Collector fairs and online auction sites apply no such filter and circulate a far wider range; the first of these sites was founded by Pierre Omidyar in California on 3 September 1995 under the name AuctionWeb, which took the name eBay in September 1997. By contrast, the illustrated catalogs printed for major saleroom sales record the sale date, lot number, description, and previous owner in writing. The chain of provenance that is so often missing in the estate pipe market survives permanently in these catalogs.