Serious collectors have learned this the hard way: the moment you can't immediately place a pipe visually, the text record alone stops being enough. A Dunhill Shell ODA and a Dunhill Shell group 4 Billiard share identical maker and finish entries. Without the thumbnail, they're the same pipe in the database.
The Rack Has Fifty Pipes and You Can't Remember the Stem Material on the One You Want
You're looking for the acrylic-stemmed Rhodesian, the one that smokes cooler in warm weather. You know it's a Bent Rhodesian, about 148mm, natural briar. But there are seven bent pieces with natural finish in the collection and the Stem Material field in your head is blank. You pull three wrong pipes before you find it, and the evening is already half over before you've properly loaded the bowl.
That's the problem the Picture field in version 2.0 solves. Not aesthetics — function. A grid view of the collection with thumbnails attached to each entry becomes a visual index. The stem tip, the shank shape, the ring of the hallmark stamp — things the text fields approximate but never capture — are now visible alongside the structured data. You spot the right pipe in seconds.
The Fields That Actually Drive Decisions
The dimensional cluster — Length, Outside Diameter, Chamber Diameter, Chamber Depth, Bowl Height, Weight — is not there for documentation. It's there for smoking decisions. A pipe with a 19mm Chamber Diameter and 38mm depth smokes differently from one with a 21mm chamber and 32mm depth, even with the same blend packed to the same level. Experienced smokers tune their fill and pack density to the bowl's internal geometry. Without consistent records, this calibration lives only in muscle memory and disappears when you haven't smoked a particular pipe for three months.
Stem Material is the field that separates disciplined records from casual ones. Vulcanite, acrylic, Cumberland, horn, Lucite — each has different oxidation behaviour, different cleaning requirements, different mouth feel at temperature. A collection with mixed stem materials that aren't documented by piece means you're guessing the care protocol every time you reach for a cloth.
Filter, with its no/type notation, handles the practical question of compatibility. A 9mm filter pipe used without its insert delivers different draw resistance. Worth knowing before you pack a blend that requires a specific draw speed.
Finding the Right Pipe for a Specific Evening
You want something in the Lovat or Liverpool shape — the straight, long-shank styles that suit a slow outdoor smoke — with a rusticated finish and a chamber depth above 35mm. Filter to Shape (Lovat, Liverpool), Finish (rustic), Chamber Depth over 35. If those entries are in the database, the answer is immediate. If they're not, you're physically handling every pipe in the cabinet.
Owned remains a boolean that keeps the wishlist honest. A collection database that conflates what you have with what you want is not a database — it's a fantasy list.