what were bongs like way back when?

abellguy said:

^ ^ I guess that's GG Grandma gravity action! Nice pic

Does anybody remember the Aqua bong? It was short plastic two pieces, with a mouth piece that flipped up for smoking and when mouth piece was down it was water tight, unless it was real hot inside the car you were stashing it in this was circa early 80's. Again couldn't find pics, I guess pictures should have been taken of these old bongs. I loved that thing it was so convenient for the car, but when Jerome Baker came out with the glass I never looked back. I don't even remember when that was probably early 90's on the JB

more searching yielded a pic I guess it's called the Aqua Pipe now, I had a white one.

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Yes I also had an aqua pipe for a while! I had forgotten all about those things.

abellguy said:

Here is a pic of one of the posters you would see in the head shops, I always remember the baseball themed ones with the "one bong, three hits, and you're out". In my area I never saw one like this but it is really cool

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That is badass! I would frame it. Thanks for sharing.

no fancy glassware that I recall being sold in the sixties & seventies. there were a lot of ceramic and acrylic bongs for sale in head shops or poster shops and then there was whatever you could steal from the high school chem lab.

orchy bottle

waaaaay back in 99 i had my my first bong hit from a 2ft tall speckled white glass bong from my former friends older brother and friends. the hit was waay too big so i cougfed my ass off and felt nothing because i imediatly cougfed out alll the smoke.

ANYWAY i remember back then the commonly used bowl was the little "cable piece", which was the little threaded metal things that were at the end of cable cords, that fit perfectly in commonly used down tubes that were made from pens with the ends pulled off. i used those aswell as small socket wrench pieces, a couple fit perfectly with pieces of stainless steel antennas, so i ended up with a couple stainless steel bowls. i started smoking the summer i turned 13 so underaged me built everything myself, iv gone through manny bongs untill i was older,

including a double bowled hooka stlye bong made from a pyrex flask from the highschool science room, and by scraching an x on a grappa bottle and slowly drilling a hole in the bottle with a glass drill bit, that one was given to a former friend.

need to resize these pics of my old school bong. have a 35ish year old grateful dead bong, buddies mom got it at a lot wayyyyyyyyyy back in the day then insert children,mom gave to oldest daughter who in turn had a kid and gave it to my buddy which made its way to me. hand made ceramic skull with roses and dancing bears around the top with a cobra on the top thats the mouthpiece. i wish the artist woulda signed it but its got no signature and no proof stamp.

The most common bong in my younger years were the plastic drink bottle with garden hose stem, with normal metal cone piece.
I think it was because glass bongs always got broken, and most were to hard to clean with the amount of use they had.

Odyssey glass from the 70's, early 80's always had the cool screen printing on em. They were famous for the hookahs with like six tubes coming off, takes multiple lighters to get it going from the pull of everybody hitting it. REAL OLD SCHOOL, that plastic graphix crap should have never been bought. I collect Odyssey Glass if anyone wants to lighten there collection, just PM

Good luck, Peace

i love the dead cant wait to see it

abellguy said:

^ ^ I guess that's GG Grandma gravity action! Nice pic

Does anybody remember the Aqua bong? It was short plastic two pieces, with a mouth piece that flipped up for smoking and when mouth piece was down it was water tight, unless it was real hot inside the car you were stashing it in this was circa early 80's. Again couldn't find pics, I guess pictures should have been taken of these old bongs. I loved that thing it was so convenient for the car, but when Jerome Baker came out with the glass I never looked back. I don't even remember when that was probably early 90's on the JB

more searching yielded a pic I guess it's called the Aqua Pipe now, I had a white one.

View attachment 162305

Click to expand...

I found one of those floating down a creek and it had small baggie of weed, which was nice because my truck overheated and didn't have any to while away the time. Got to believe in those pot gods..lol

depends what time you consider "way back when".

They have some random pics scattered through this thread, of old bong ads from the late 70s. They can be found in here.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=135579

In the 60s most water pipes were of the hookah design. Which have never been really good for grass. The smoke gets stale too quickly. Less common were the bamboo water pipes which worked the best but only have so many uses for a daily head. And there were the ceramic looking ones. Like somebody bought a vase and drilled a hole in it. Then put a downstem.

By the 70s "Glass Head", "US Bongs", "Apogee" and their various other titles were common making both ceramic and glass pipes of all shapes and sizes. As well as regular ball bottom and straight glass bongs. Carbs caught on during this time as well.

Then there was the slow evolution to the glass you still see today. Those big soft glass bongs got common in the 80s. Then the raked glass, and fumed glass. Early 90s glass bubblers got real popular for some reason. By the late 90s silver fumed ball bottom bongs like "Jerome Baker Designs" were the high end stuff. Turn of the century you started to see GonG, and perolated designs from people like RooR and PHX. Then the explosion of science glass.

Don't worry. You didn't miss much. Many smokers such as myself didn't bother to use them up until the last decade. Those big soft glass bongs are junk. Hit hot, harsh, and stale. Jbd's were light years in improvement, but they still have a lot of drag by today's standards.

In fact the main explosion in glass technology has really been the last 5 years. We are damn slow to pick up on stuff. All we had to do was drill holes in a metal downstem. Could have done that thirty years ago. But nobody did until the turn of the century. Lol. Stoners are slow to learn apparently.

The only thing that was neat with bongs from the 70s is they had some that were table top pieces. Not meant to be carried and moved much, and they were self contained. The base of the water pipe was also a three sectioned tray. For ash, for fresh green bud, and for your lighters and scissors.

Anyone remember the gatlon bong...had a big rotating bowl with 6 smaller bowls that spun around in a circle when one bowl was done ya spun it to the next bowl

First bong I ever used 40 yrs ago was plastic about 8 inches tall they still make um today

When I was in the army we use fire extingushier parts to make field bongs

vapedg13 said:

Anyone remember the gatlon bong...had a big rotating bowl with 6 smaller bowls that spun around in a circle when one bowl was done ya spun it to the next bowl

First bong I ever used 40 yrs ago was plastic about 8 inches tall they still make um today

When I was in the army we use fire extingushier parts to make field bongs

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If I understand you correctly you are talking about a revolver bowl.

http://www.marijuana.com/threads/6-bowl-revolver-for-bong-snaps.247012/

They still make them and sell them. I forget what shop had them, but they are sold under miscellaneous bong parts from online vendors. Somewhere in India a factory still cranks them out by the thousands.

I still have one (six shooter), they're excellent for doling out small hits of hi-grade, only problem is that they're designed to mate up with acrylic bong hardware, common lampshade fittings.

i just got a flashback from reading this!


i remember the Graffix Bongs with the jester head!!! hahahahah!

vapedg13 said:

Anyone remember the gatlon bong...had a big rotating bowl with 6 smaller bowls that spun around in a circle when one bowl was done ya spun it to the next bowl

First bong I ever used 40 yrs ago was plastic about 8 inches tall they still make um today

When I was in the army we use fire extingushier parts to make field bongs

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I owned a six-place hitter but it was a slider with the individual bowls in-line.

A gallon milk jug with some plastic tubing hooked up to it and a bowl. Plain and simple.

Another form was a paper towel tube with a hole in the middle with aluminum foil for a screen and you used your palm as a pressure source, VERY STRONG WICKED HITS!!!!! Jon 54

Jon 54 said:

A gallon milk jug with some plastic tubing hooked up to it and a bowl. Plain and simple.

Another form was a paper towel tube with a hole in the middle with aluminum foil for a screen and you used your palm as a pressure source, VERY STRONG WICKED HITS!!!!! Jon 54

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oh lord, that's quite a flashback, i had forgotten about those things
they worked, and did have wicked hits, but i remember the taste of foil in those hits

Glass wouldn't last a month here.

Lost the one-hit bowl it came with over 25 years ago. The gold label on the bottom is still there.
G. Graphics
Milwaukee WI
Some phone number.

How many even older confiscated bongs.........4 - a lot of people toked from the 3 slick homemade ones first. The other was a foot or so likely a US Bongs, that or the G. Graphics came with a packet of tobacco or whatever it was I threw away.

This brand was popular and they were called geographics, then every bong where you pulled out the stem became a "geo".

This isn't the explain your name thread, but no one cares here either, so, in 11th grade instead of studying I scrawled a comic strip and short stories involving this very brand, while facing Joe C., who shared our assigned table in study hall. Partial detonation of a USAF atomic bomb, while about to hit the bong in a stall in the school bathroom, left it grafted into (sole survivor in a mile radius) G.O. Joe's left hand, indestructible, the loaded hit eternal. The bong water is changed often though.

^ ^ damn there it is in all it's glory. I am surprised there aren't a couple of passed out high schoolers laying next to it Are you saying you are still using that? And they are still available for sale? I would really like to have another one of those for sure!

Not sure if it was the same company or not but when graffix, written in bones, started coming out with the glass ones that were similar I still have one of those lying around. It's 4 foot long, I get it out every once in a while but would really love another one like what you have pictured there! Thanks for the picture and the memories