This meerschaum Bent Billiard came in to the shop for a new stem, part of the same batch of pipes as the Nording freehand I wrote about last week. If you have read that post, the condition of this pipe when it arrived won't be much of a surprise. As this series of pics shows,… Continue reading A Deep Cleaning and a New Stem for a Large Meerschaum Bent Billiard
The range and diversity of meerschaum pipes never fails to impress me. From traditional shapes to intricately carved designs and figurals, there is a meerschaum pipe to meet any taste. The pipe on the worktable today is a traditional smooth Author with a bit of Teutonic flare in the shape of a crowned nickel wind… Continue reading A New Stem and a Good Waxing for a Capped Meerschaum Author
Today's estate pipe restoration is a bit more esoteric than some of my recent posts. I'm working on a rather petite figural meerschaum pipe carved into the likeness of a lady's head. I would tentatively date this pipe to the latter half of the 19th Century, though there are no markings on the pipe or… Continue reading Replacing a Bone Screw Tenon on a Petite Lady’s Head Figural Meerschaum
This pipe belongs to a fellow Ontario piper and DadsPipes reader who wrote to me asking what could be done to get this older meerschaum Egg back into his rotation. At first glance, the pipe looked to be in good shape, but a closer inspection revealed that the stem had been damaged at the button… Continue reading Overhauling an Austrian Meerschaum Straight Egg
Today's post is a bit different than usual; instead of a complete restoration, I'm going to focus on a repair that is surely one of the most common when presented with a damaged meerschaum pipe - replacing a Push-Pull fitting, the small plastic/Delrin parts used to create a strong mortise and tenon joint between stem… Continue reading Replacing the Mortise & Tenon on a Sultan Carved Meerschaum
I found this Peterson meerschaum pipe during a recent visit to an antiques mall about an hour’s drive from my house. I hear stories of antique shops seemingly overflowing with estate pipes, but in my neck of the woods, the pipe hunt is often more of a feast-or-famine game. Many times I don’t come across… Continue reading Surprises While Refreshing a Peterson “Aboriginal Finish” Meerschaum 80S
Back in November of last year, I wrote about a meerschaum billiard with a loose bone tenon joint. The threads in the meerschaum shank had worn and the tenon could no longer get a firm grip on the stummel. My solution at the time was to build up the threads on the tenon with CA… Continue reading The Repair I Should Have Done – Revisiting an Old Meerschaum Billiard
I found this somewhat battered meerschaum billiard at a local antique sale recently. It’s unmarked, so I can’t even begin to guess at who made it, but the Bakelite stem with orifice style opening puts the year of production somewhere between 1907 (the year Bakelite was invented) and the late 1920’s when orific stems were… Continue reading Undue Haste Leads to Shank Repair on an Old Meerschaum Billiard
This medium sized bent meerschaum is the third of five meers from my recent estate lot purchase. It is much smaller than the Egg & Claw meer I wrote about here, but I think many pipers will appreciate its more manageable dimensions. The pipe is carved from a single block of meerschaum in a tulip… Continue reading Quick Cleanup of a Tulip Meerschaum Sitter
This is the second of five meerschaum pipes I acquired as part of my last estate lot purchase. The first meer from that collection was an unsmoked turn-of-the-20th-cenury Delacour meerschaum and amber bulldog I wrote about here. Being unsmoked, the bulldog was an easy pipe to prepare for a new owner; this intricately carved Egg… Continue reading Cleaning and Waxing a Large Egg & Claw Meerschaum
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