"We do not stop playing because we grow old;
we grow old because we stop playing."
Anonymous
"Cut & Shuffle"
Got any Pipebe.at card deck? Wanna land a spot in the 2026 edition? Send us a fun video (max 2 minutes) and show us what you've got! Whoever gets the most votes picks their own card — (except the Joker . . . that one's already taken). And yes — some of the voters will be rewarded too. After all, it takes a sharp eye to spot a future face card.
The Dutch pipe maker Martin Romijn (5 of Clubs in 2024/2025) and his friend Davey Bindervoet (a singer and magician) performing "The Joker Trick" at Café De Roode Laars in Amsterdam.
Me, trying to outplay Wilson Wang from C pipes (Jack of Diamonds in 2024/2025) and two other friends in the game of cards in the Shanghai pipe club.
"Drawn by the Deck"
Short stories in ink — drawn from the pipe world.
"23"
Petr Kopl, slow smoking competition, Třebíč, Czech Republic, 2023
Třebíč, November 11, 2023 — a slow pipe-smoking competition on St. Martin's Day. I couldn't be there in person, but I still wanted to take part in my own way. So I sent in a small surprise: a deck of Pipebe.at playing cards from the 2023 edition — to be awarded to whoever finished in 23rd place. No announcement, no spotlight. Just a quiet nod to the number. What I didn't expect was this: The 23rd spot went to Petr, a well-known comic artist. And as a surprise in return — I received this drawing from him.
"The man who saved the sacred cards"
Karl Grux, pipe show, Saint-Claude, France, 2025
Karl and I met in Saint-Claude, the legendary town of pipes nestled in the French Jura. He picked out one of my handmade pipes, and as a small gesture, I handed him a deck of Pipebe.at playing cards. What I didn't realize — until much later — was that I'd accidentally given him my personal deck from 2023. The very one I'd been carrying with me, collecting signatures from the people featured on the cards themselves. For a while, I thought it was gone forever. Fortunately, it all worked out in the end — Karl sent the deck back (along with this drawing), and I was able to send him a different one: a 2023 edition I had recently recovered after more than a year in limbo, lost somewhere on its way to Indonesia — one I had already considered lost. Karl's response? He laughed and said: "Pipebe.at playing cards really like to travel." And after all that… I believe him.
"Herbert"
王泊锦, art studio, Chengdu, China, 2025
Bojin is the kind of person we in Europe would call a Renaissance man. Not only does he masterfully navigate the worlds of tea, calligraphy, and poetry, but he effortlessly weaves them together into a single harmonious thread. As one of the sponsors of the 2025 Czech Pipe Smoking Championship, Bojin handpicked and donated a tea from his own production (Tian Zhi Tea) — a perfect match for the Chinese pipe tobacco Pindao. (Yes, it really worked.)
When I visited him in Chengdu, I was graciously invited to demonstrate my skills with the calligraphy brush. Let's just say… if you recall the scene from "The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared" movie, where the young brothers Albert and Herbert Einstein are drawing at the table — you'll know which of the two I was. To soothe my artistic ego, Bojin generously offered these lines instead — a quiet balm in verse:
"Blue smoke coils around the emerald brew; the pipe warms the tea's fragrance.
In the tea's haze, half a small cup of pale green — time settles into clarity.
In this moment, the vessel speaks not a word, yet holds its own world —
the ember in the pipe flickers like a faint light of the human realm,
while inside the cup the jade leaves drift and rise like life's ups and downs."
