"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.
While visiting Mr. Tang Jung and his wife of DUSA Pipes, the distributors of pipebe.at playing cards in China, I decided to demonstrate a little shuffle. To their surprise, the cards lived up to their built-in guarantee . . . quietly delivering four aces to the table at Café from the far in Shanghai.
"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."
