Years ago as a ‘newbie’ pipe smoker I naturally learned about Pipes and Tobaccos magazine. I couldn’t believe that a magazine like this existed amongst all of the other numerous magazines residing at my local Chapters (Indigo now) bookstore waiting to be purchased like orphans waiting for adoption.

Back then, one could wait for the next issue to come out, and then head down to Chapters and nab one for yourself. It was very handy and convenient. But do you know what was even more handy and convenient? Having them mailed to you at your place of residence!

I submitted my subscription request and forwarded payment. It wasn’t long before I started to receive my Pipe and Tobaccos magazine in the mail at home. Seriously, that was a monthly highlight.

The articles, photos, advertising, all of it – geared towards pipe smokers. One of the early issues had an article on cigars, but aside from that, the magazine was ‘totalamente’ about pipe smoking.

Their website was quite rudimentary, but it worked. It was, after all, a magazine publisher. Visiting their website one could see the various issues available to purchase. Some, however, were ‘sold out’ and they had none available to send you if you wanted one. That meant heading over to eBay or online with one of the various Forums available to beg someone for their copy. That didn’t happen often. No one who had the magazine wanted to pass or sell it to anyone else.

For a short time, One of the Forums run by Smokingpipes dot com provided digital access to the full magazine. This was through a subscription to Pipes and Tobaccos Foundations. For those who did not have any of the issues it was terrific. It was basically a .pdf scanned copy that you might find in an archived news site like the New York Times Archives.

In any event, there were so many terrific articles, that sometimes you wanted to re-visit reading a particular one, but you couldn’t remember which issue. Well, on their website, they had an Index link. The Index link used “ctrl-f” to find which subject you were looking for based on the keyword.

They updated the Index with each new issue that was promulgated, but they stopped updating the Index a number of issues before their last issue. It was then that I decided to copy their Index and create a Word document that I could keep on my computer and search from there. As well, why not ‘update’ the Index myself? Once I received an issue, I would mimic how they were indexing their subject matter and then I would have an up-to-date, comprehensive index to search through.

Well, time moved and life happens. For many, many years that Index never was updated. Until recently. Very recently. I buckled down and finally completed the Index.

I am including a link to the Index here for you all. It’s free to download and copy and share and love. Those of you who, like me, have all the copies of the magazine will find this to be a very helpful resource to find a subject and read about it.

It’s so cool when I see a pipe on eBay that I’m not too familiar about. I’ll head on over to the Index, punch in the maker, and 7 times out of then there is an article about them. Same with tobacco blends, processes, etc…it’s all there.

My next project will be to compile a comprehensive listing of the Trial By Fire pieces and provide a separate index of all tobacco reviewed. That would be another great resource since some of us without VPN service cannot navigate to Tobaccoreviews dot com any longer.

So without further ado, here is the link to the Pipes and Tobaccos Index for you all.

Please enjoy responsibly!