The Fab Egg is an intricate bong that sends clouds of weed vapor through a dizzying array of percolators all contained in one egg-shaped chamber. In 2012, Scott Deppe and Jake Colito made their first one and sold it for $1,200. The product captivated the high-end bong market immediately, and the price tag has increased with each new incarnation. In 2016, during an auction in the basement of Seattle’s El Gaucho steak house, an astounding thing happened: A version of the bong sold for more than $100,000.
The meteoric rise of Deppe and Colito’s handblown pipes—which sell under their Bellingham company’s name, Mothership—would be hard to imagine 14 years ago, when items like the Fab Egg were being confiscated by the federal government. What has changed in such a short period of time to turn bong makers into millionaires instead of federal convicts?
