Billie W. Taylor II, Ph.D.
Collection

Giant Pot the pipe

Ebony

pipe photo
The value of pipe #377 is 70 points.
70 points description

For some time, Rick Osborn had a Pot pipe that he believed could be a Giant Pot. His description left me thinking he might be right. When Rick found another just like it being offered by Bill Unger on eBay, he bid and won. He then sent me this pipe, asking my opinion. There was one factor that made it seem like a good candidate; the larger inside diameter of the bowl. Unfortunately, the other dimensions do not jibe well with the limited descriptions we have from Super-Temp personnel and an RTDA catalog page. It is more likely a variant of the Pot. However, we can't be positive of that until we find a Giant Pot. Since he had two of these and I had a couple of pipes he wanted, we made the trade. Over five years later, a Federal Gold Pot with the larger inside diameter came my way and I compared it to this one and to the other Pot pipes in the collection. I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that Rick was right all along, that the descriptions in the RTDA Almanac and the recollections of production people I have talked to are not what really happened. If this newest thinking is correct, the original plan was to make the Giant Pot larger overall and it was announced before production began. Then it was discovered that the advertised larger bowl capacity did not require a larger pipe. All that was needed was to make the outer wall of the bowl just a smidgeon larger and slightly thinner and the bowl liner wall slightly thinner. Voila!

When I reviewed all the pipes in the collection I discovered #247 was a Giant Pot in original packaging. and so put this pipe in that packaging.