Ben Rapaport
For the past 50 years, Ben Rapaport has been known internationally as an avid pipe smoker, antique pipe collector, and tobacco bibliophile. He was inducted into the International Academy of the Pipe in 1985, into the Confrérie des maîtres-pipiers de Saint-Claude, France, in 1989, and was the recipient of the prestigious “Doctor of Pipes” achievement award from the Chicagoland Pipe Collectors Club in 2004.
Ben has completed his 9th book!
An Intimate History of The Tobacco Industry, 1850–1920. From The Briar Pipe of Saint-Claude to The Cigarette in The Trenches of World War One. Ben will be the only one selling it, and is trying to get a handle on how many might want to buy a copy; so he'll know how many to print. He does not have a price yet, but estimates between $20-$25 (hopefully). If you may be interested in a copy, you can contact him via E-mail at
ben70gray@gmail.com
He is the author of
- A Tobacco Source Book (1972)
- A Complete Guide to Collecting Antique Pipes (1979, 1998)
- The Global Guide to Tobacco Literature (1989)
- Museum of Tobacco History and Art Guide Book (1996)
- Collecting Antique Meerschaums: Miniature to Majestic Sculpture, 1850-1925 (1999)
- The European Porcelain Tobacco Pipe (2014)
- Tobacco and Smoking Among The Blue and Gray (2014), available through the author, and Briar Books Press
The European Porcelain Tobacco Pipe, courtesy Amazon.com
His sixth book, The Arts of an Addiction: Qing Dynasty Opium Pipes and Accessories (2005) was his first writing venture on a non-tobacco topic.
He is a popular lecturer at pipe clubs, his articles on pipe and tobacco history appeared regularly in Pipes & Tobaccos magazine until Spring 2019, when is ceased publication, and his articles occasionally appeared in CIGAR magazine until Spring 2011 when it ceased to be published. Achievements and affiliations include: member, Pipe Smoker’s Hall of Fame (1973); Consultant, Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society, University of Alabama (2001). As a certified personal property appraiser, Ben has conducted formal valuations of pipe collections for several museums and for private collectors.
Additionally, for the past 30-odd years, Ben has operated a special niche, mail-order business, selling rare, out-of-print, and in-print books in English and in several foreign languages on all manner of pipes and tobacco. He has prepared a "Recommended Reading List" for those interested in a rather complete bibliography of books on these two topics.
The following articles are available here on pipedia.org:
- New!: A Conversation Piece: "The Most Expensive Pipe", October 2021
- Meerschaum: Lost in Translation: The Linguistic Hodgepodge of Mg4Si6O15(OH)2·6H2O
- Extraordinary Ephemera: Catalogs as a glimpse into a bygone smoking era
- Reflection on the Trade: Random Pipe and Tobacco Facts and Factoids of Yesterday
- Pipemaking 101. A Bilingual Syllabus
- Pipe Bombs: good intentions, bad designs! (Spring 2019)
- My Manifesto: A Plea for Plain Talk
- Collectible Pipe-related Ephemera: Here Today, Not Necessarily Gone Tomorrow!.
- The Tobacco Pipe—Opium Pipe Nexus: Where there’s smoke, there are accessories!
- The Antique Tobacco Pipe, Invention-Function-Art (Originally Published in the Journal of Antiques and Collectibles, February 2019)
- A Reading List for the Pipe Smoker and Pipe Collector (Fall 2021)
- A Few Good Men, an article for Pipes and Tobacco Magazine (November, 2003), available by permission. Bragge is a major focus. A related article appears in Pipes & Tobaccos magazine, Vol. 20, No. 1, Spring 2015 "Writers’ Blocks. A survey of pipe and tobacco literature through time."
- An Historical Review of Reviews: Chronicling A Century of Magazines for the Pipe-Smoking Maven, by Ben Rapaport
- Museums With Interest In Tobacco, Compiled by Ben Rapaport (Winter 2018-2019)
- Remembering Richard Dunhill, Originally Published in Pipes & Tobaccos magazine 2016. This version is unedited.
- In Pipestone. A puzzling pipe of improvisational ingenuity
- Whatever Happened to Plain Speak, Ben's Manifesto: A Plea for Plain Talk
- The Odyssey of the Oom Paul: A Hungarian ... Really?. Note: We are also working on this in wiki formatting, but it currently lacks the footnotes The Odyssey of the Oom Paul: A Hungarian ... Really?.
We are currently working on bringing these to Pipedia from the Wayback Machine's archived version of P&T Magazine's website, which is sadly now defunct:
- To Patent or Not to Patent?
- The Great Divide: You Are What You Collect
- Where’s The Real Pipe Action? I Say It’s At The Auction Block!
- Reflections on the Trade: Random Pipe and Tobacco Facts and Factoids of Yesterday
- Perceptions of Pipe Smokers: Hypothesis or Hyperbole?
- The Write Stuff
This is just a small sampling of Ben's many publications. His complete bibliography is available here: Publications of Ben Rapaport. We hope to add many more of Ben's articles here on Pipedia as time allows.
Off site links
- You might enjoy listening to Brian Levine's interview with Ben on the Pipes Magazine Radio Show
- TobaccoPipeArtistory on Blogspot.com
- The Tobacco Pipe Artistory on FaceBook
Contact Information
Ben Rapaport can be reached by E-mail at mailto:ben70gray@gmail.com. {Category:Ben Rapaport]]