about us

Our house 1897

November 4, 1930 my grandpa opened the store

Dear wallowers & aficionados - pipe enthusiasts & collectors:

About me:

I am just one seller among thousands of others.

What makes the diffenrence?

I am not interested in fast sales - but in good and serious customers!

I am not in competition with anybody else !

If you buy an item from me
ist comes with a certificate:

This certificate guarantees that full refund will be given
if you are not fully satisfied with the item you bought from me.
It guarantees that the item will be maintained in my workshop.
It guarantees that the item is unique and handselected by me for you.

The certificate comes with an extra sheet
which is especially for the item you bought.

By the way: It is it all it new to me and to "my" pipemakers.
At present I have nothing of my "new collection" in stock.
It will take a while to get the "best of the best",
and it will take time to get "my good spirits" into
my "piece of wood with two holes drilled in it".
This cannot succeed from one day to another.

Thanks for your time !

Yours faithfully,
Piepenhoeker Rolf Osterndorff

Furthermore and very important:
It is not my intension to offend or to snub anybody !
On my travels around the globe I met too many honest people
with great skills and craftmanship - great artisans.
Many carvers and manufacturers do not just carve a neat pipe,
but they produce art, culture, and lifestyle with paintings and sculptures,
no matter whether they live in developing countries or developed countries.
Many have become friends and many more hopefully will become friends.
We are a big International family - with no borders -
not geographically - not religious - not linguistic - not complexion!
Feelings are unttached to complexion, culture, and continent.

4th of November 1930 my grandpa opened his store for pipes and tabacco	Our house 1897 where the store is placed until today
I was born in the house 13th of October 1948. And I sold my first tobacco before I went to school. But when I had finished school I decided to become a sailor. I startet my career in 1967 with "Hamburg-America-Line" and sailed all around the world for about 25 years and became a merchant-navy-captain. My first time at sea I spent as pupil during holidays 1964 and went to England on a coaster, up River "Humber" to Port of Gool. I became so awfully seasick that I could never imagine to become a sailor, but I did. In 1967 we sailed to the West Coast of America to Ports of L.A., Eureka, Longview, San Francisco, Seattle and up to Vancouver. San Francisco we arrived at night and I steered the ship with a pilot on board passing Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz going alongside the beautiful skyline. That was a real great event for me during "Flowerpower -Time". And ashore I met a lot of people and we had a lot of fun. Then I sailed to "Great Lakes", East-Coast, Golf (Corpus Christi, Houston, Galveston, New Orleans), Caribean Sea, East-Asia, Australia and so on.
Our house from 1897 where we still sell pipes tobaccos and newspapers And always when I came back from overseas I helped in the store and 1986 I started repairing pipes. The picture shows me 1986 in my little workshop. At that time I bought whole assortments of Italian, English Danish and German pipes ( I had to buy all the assortments, otherwise I won´t have got the pipes ). And after that I had to sail to sea again to be able to pay my dues.
That´s why I still have "Stock from 1986"on my pages. Cuxhaven is a small town and in the North there is River "Elbe"leading to Hamburg, in the West is River "Weser"leading to Bremen and in all other directions we have the green, green grass of home and some cows, but not too many pipe-smokers ;-)).

By the way:
1984 I was involved in the war between Iran and Irak. I was captain on a fire-fighting tug and after we had extinguished the fire of big tanker-ship "Safina Al Arab" we were attacted by Iranians, who tried to get back the ship from International Waters. So we sent SOS and within a short time we had the American war- ships "Boone", "Loose" and "Lasalle" around us who sent the buccaneers back home and we could proceed with our work.

Until today I am thankful that the American friends were on stage, because I don´t know what would have happened ....
One night a fay appeared in my dreams and told me:
"Rolf, go home and stay with your family and just trade in pipes.
I´ll give you pipes of the finest grade of Sardinean and Corsican plateaux briar and you´ll never have to worry again about anything ." And so I did.
But sometimes I get the feeling that all sellers met the same fay ;-))).
And I am still full of hope that my dreams will fulfill some day.