New Pipe Smoker With A Question? Ask an Old Fart

[Mister Moo]

...I've picked up a handful of estate briars at antique shops, yard sales and flea markets over the last year. All but two of them had a wad of unsmoked tobacco left in them and all but three had a crazy-thick cake on them. My questions are:
. Have smokers' habits changed that much in the last twenty years?
. Did 'old-timers' make a habit of leaving unsmoked tobacco in the bowl?
. Am I making too big a deal over these neglected pipes when compared to the (assumed) larger number of well-maintained pipes still in smokers' rotations?
. Why, oh why, did 'old-timers' leave such thick cakes in their pipes?

I've wondered about those guys too. My take is they weren't thinking too hard. I have purchased a couple of trashed estate pipes of real quality that were, fortunately, recoverable. Mostly, though, the trashed ones I see were pipes without any particular merit then or now.

Take a not-too-whippy Grabow from Sparta, NC, fill it with goop-oid aromatic drugstore stuff 10-15 times a week and, voila - caked thick and nasty in a year. Two years and maybe 11 pipecleaners later you're halfway thru a smoke and think, "Feh! This pipe tastes like dog pooter. I will go back to General Hardware and buy a new one." Old stinky, half-smoked and never cleaned, goes to the back of the dresser drawer until 40-years later when the kids are cleaning things out. I got a great Brakner like this recently - most of the rest have been Grabows or no-names.