The word “meerschaum” means “sea 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.
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.
If capacity has been reached for the day, the tobacco pipe queue will close early. These coatings may include honey and water; powdered sugar and water; 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.
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.
Do this until all the tobacco is in the pipe, tight enough so that when you tip it upside down, no tobacco falls out. It’s likely you’ll need to use the small nail to poke a hole down the center to let some air in. Test the draw on the pipe at this point; it should be reminiscent of sucking soda through a straw. This is the method that I prefer, and have had the most success with. We do not ship cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, or roll your own tobacco. Let’s cut right to the chase here; you can fit a lot of tobacco in this one.
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 tobacco pipe could not identify anyone that I knew who smoked a pipe today.
The tobacco chamber runs nearly parallel to the stem, which makes it very difficult to drill proper channel for the smoke and still maintain good smoking mechanics. To combat tobacco pipe this, a true Ramses has the draught hole drilled so that it ends a few tenths of a millimeter away from the side and bottom of the tobacco chamber. Another hole is then made through the side of the tobacco chamber which meets the draught hole. This method allows the smoker to smoke the Ramses all the way down to the bottom of the bowl, which is a difficult thing to do with many fully bent pipes.
Well, Native Americans had pipe-smoking traditions before the arrival of Europeans in America. The 1964 Surgeon General’s report referenced earlier resulted in a boom in pipe smoking as the report claimed that pipe smokers actually lived longer than other smokers. Smoking pipe tobacco is not only harmful to the health of the user, but it is also a serious health risk to anyone exposed to its smoke. Secondhand smoke is classified as a known human carcinogen because it contains many of the harmful chemicals that are in the smoke directly inhaled by smokers. This bizarre little smoking instrument is designed to fit in the pocket of a vest, as the name implies. The bowl of the pipe is rather unique in that the chamber is actually oval shaped, and not round.
Butane lighters made specifically for pipes emit flame sideways or at an angle to make it easier to direct flame into the bowl. Torch-style lighters should never be used to light a pipe because their flames are too hot and can char the rim of the pipe bowl. Matches should be allowed to burn for several seconds to allow the sulfur from the tip to burn away and the match to produce a full flame. A naphtha fueled lighter should also be allowed to burn a few seconds to get rid of stray naphtha vapors that could give a foul taste to the smoke.