Howard

Tom Howard was a popular radio personality in the 1940s/50s. He was, of course, a pipe smoker and played off his popularity to market his own line of pipes. The Howard pipes were knockoffs of Tracy Mincer’s Custombilt (Custom-Bilt) pipes that were popular in the mid 20th century. Tom Howard was not a carver. He lent his name to the line of pipes that was made in one of the East Coast factories. These probably were influenced by the original Custombilt carvings. Howard was a famous pipe collector, reputed to have had several thousand.