Reflections on Berets & Pipes

Berets and Pipes have been a great combination in many ways. Just as common as seeing a boineroin European streets during the 1950s and 60s, it was to see a gentleman smoking a pipe. Then there is the added advantage of keeping your pipe semi-covered under a well sized beret, of course. 
   
The b/p combination was solidified in many beret labels, depicting a boinero smoking his pipe. Interestingly, the same happened the other way 'round: pipes depicting a boinero!
  
The trigger for these reflections comes from a large order this morning; a pipe smoking club who bought 30 of the new berets with the (pipe-smoking) Chirola label - practically my whole stock (and this at a time that a pipe-smoker is pretty much a social pariah)! 
 
Despite my instant love affair with these new-vintage berets, this morning I went back to my trusted Elósegui Clásica in chocolate-brown; the perfect beret on one of those fall/spring days in between numbing coldness and hot summer weather. 
  
The label in these (Spanish Civil War remakes) is the authentic "super exposicion", the predecessor of the present-day Super Lujo model. On an online auction last week, one of these labels sold for 25 euro (US$28.40), that's almost 2/3 of the new complete beret at South Pacific Berets!