Pipes don't have to be expensive. Cobs, as ya know, are very cheap yet smoke beautifully. I have several of the Ropp "Vintage" line of pipes and they were 70-80$ each. I like their horn stems, and the bowls were carved in the 50's, I believe. Huge boxes of them were found in storage and the Ropp factory has been hand carving stems for them slowly and letting smokingpipes.com sell them.

edit: the reason the old bowls are important is that there is very little access today to really good briar.