Ed's Hand Made (Edward Kolpin)

Ed's Hand Made is the name given to pipes finished by hand by Edward August Kolpin Sr. in Santa Monica, California. Despite being one of the most recognized names in American pipe retail, Kolpin's real attachment was to the bench; after passing on the chain he founded, he returned to making pipes alone once again. For this reason Ed's Hand Made is considered less a factory brand than one person's signature.

From Pharmacy to Tobacco

That Kolpin was born in 1910 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, is the commonly cited information in pipe literature. He chose pharmacy as a profession, studied it at the University of Southern California, and worked for many years at his father's pharmacy. Yet his real interest did not lie in the prescriptions behind the counter. Records indicate that in 1927 he turned the pharmacy's soda-fountain section into a corner where tobacco could be smoked; at the same time he began studying blends on his own and selling them to pipe shops. When this second pursuit outpaced pharmacy in income, a change of profession became unavoidable, and around 1930 he opened the doors of Ed's Pipe Shop on Santa Monica Boulevard.

His 1947 divorce left him financially wiped out. The European trip he took while in debt, however, produced an unexpected outcome: the first pieces of a pipe collection that would grow to thousands of items over the years came from this trip. After returning to the country he built Tinder Box on his family's lot on Wilshire Boulevard, with a facade recalling an old English cottage. The business's founding year differs across sources: local historical records point to 1928, while pipe literature writes that the Wilshire shop opened in 1948. It is known that the store building standing today was built in 1951 and its well-known neon sign in 1953. The shop was one of the haunts of the Hollywood crowd of the period; for named customers, see the entry famous pipe smokers.