This is something weird. The pipe you see below "developed" some dark blotches after some time of use. The stummel is unstained, only a spit coat of shellac. I do not touch the shank when holding it. At first I thought it was just some smudge, but later surprisedly found that the blotches fade away when the pipe rests and come back when I smoke it. The first photo was taken today before smoking and the second afterwards, that is about 2 hours later. The only reason I could imagine is oil seeping through, but I have never believed briar could "breathe" like this! The wall of shank is of normal thickness.

Have you seen this happen? Why does it only appear on the top side of the shank? Is it related to the rustication?

I've seen that happen on pipes with tiny sand pits that go deeper than I thought.

ditto. there are more porous places in some briar that lets the oils get through. at least in my experience.
this, to me, signals cheap wood

It's not necessarily cheap wood, just very porous wood. Some extremely high quality wood can be rather porous, and when you couple that with very wet-smoking tobacco, you can get some staining like that.

Agree w/kurt - not necessarily cheap wood. The Tuscan that PME is/was selling is more prone to that than the algerian, for example, and it's more expensive.

What you are seeing is an area of the wood that is "better" at transferring liquid, possibly having more linear grain and usually being less dense in that spot.

If I stain a pipe, and the stain runs through into the bowl, I won't sell the pipe, because I know that without blocking those pores up quite significantly, the opposite will also happen, and tarry goo will demonstrate at some point on the outside of the pipe.

So not "cheap" briar necessarily, but I think a guy would still call it .... sub-ideal?

It's Mimmo ebauchon. The Mimmo blocks I have are uniformly high quality - white, dense and nearly flawless. This is the first I rusticated (for fun, not to cover anything), so I'm concerned whether the blotches are related to the finish. Anyway, it is probably quite porous.

Strange thing is, this pipe is a very good smoker. When the photo was taken, less than 20 bowls had been smoked in total. Only Larsen 20, MB Navy Flake and Solani 633. It's always quite dry in the bowl after smoke, and the flavor is particuarly good.

Alright, now is the showdown: I was converted to an engineering guy by the pros on this forum and came to disregard the well-known myths (disconnections, fanaticisms, obsessions...) of Pipedom. And now before me is a pipe that smokes wonderful and literally breathes. I'm lost.

Porous woods make wonderful smokers because they absorb any moisture that might collect - olive is similar. Wonderful smoke! But olive can also discolour as it "sucks" on pipe juice.

Nice info. I've been interested in olive, both for its beauty and the said flavor. This makes it more appealing. Got to try it when I find some blocks.