If capacity has been reached for the day, the queue will close early. These coatings may include honey and water; powdered sugar and water; tobacco pipe cigar ash and water; and sour cream, buttermilk, and activated charcoal among many others. Welcome to our store and welcome to our family of enthusiastic pipe aficionados, casual puffers, and curious newcomers—wherever you fit in, we’re happy you’re here.
The bowls of tobacco pipes are commonly made of briar wood, meerschaum, corncob, pear-wood, rose-wood or clay. Less common materials include other dense-grained woods such as cherry, olive, maple, mesquite, oak, and bog-wood. Pipe bowls are sometimes decorated by carving, and moulded clay pipes often had simple decoration in the mould. I made a conscious effort to identify pipe smokers in my travels, as soon as I decided on this focus for today’s column. While many pipe smokers came to mind from the past, I could not find anyone and could not identify anyone that I knew who smoked a pipe today.
The word “meerschaum” means “sea Fashion tobacco pipe foam” in German, alluding to its natural white color and its surprisingly low weight. Meerschaum is a very porous mineral that absorbs the tars and oils during the smoking process, and gradually changes color to a golden brown. Old, well-smoked meerschaum pipes are valued by collectors for their distinctive coloring.
Originally a woodworker, Tibbe quickly made the pipe better and soon decided to make corn cob smoking pipes permanently. Much like Dunhill, Vauen marks their smoking pipes with a dot on their stem. Pipes sold in Germany are marked with a white dot, while internationally sold pipes bear a grey dot.
Most, including myself, do not consider it “smoking”, in the same way I don’t consider myself an alcoholic because I have a beer once a week. It’s not an addiction, but certainly appeals to collectors and those that want to explore an incredibly diverse variety of tastes and smells. Also, pipes are made from various materials such as briar, clay, ceramics, corncob, glass, meerschaum, metal, gourd, stone, wood, bog oak and calabash. Pipes were and continue to be made of various sizes depending on what would be placed in the pipe. Because of the long history of pipes and the materials that were used to make them, they have become quite collectible. You may recall movies and television shows of Native Americans smoking pipes.