mirschaum

[dogwood]

anyone smoke these or are they too fragile? my guy at the tobacco shop doesn't carry them b/c people have dropped them and they break. are they more for show than smoking? i've heard they smoke really well.

[farrisdarren]

I'm a huge fan of the meerschaum. I just have a simple small one, but it is really light on the jaw and smokes really well too. They are pretty fragile and sensitive to whether, but if you take care of it, you should truly enjoy the pipe. That's sad that your shop doesn't carry them, but I definitely recommend giving one a shot if you can afford it. Mine was only $50 from my local shop, so it wasn't too bad.

[Frank]

If you aren't too fussy about size and quality, you can get them dirt cheap, great for a starter Meer: eBay Meerschaums

[FredS]

my guy at the tobacco shop doesn't carry them b/c people have dropped them and they break. are they more for show than smoking?

Reminds of the old guy who owned the fisrt machine shop I worked in. He didn't like new-fangled dial indicators with jeweled movements becasue they were too fragile. "Hit 'em with a hammer or drop the damn things and they're no good any more".

[Frank]

Reminds of the old guy who owned the fisrt machine shop I worked in. He didn't like new-fangled dial indicators with jeweled movements becasue they were too fragile. "Hit 'em with a hammer or drop the damn things and they're no good any more".

I just got a mental picture of him going around the shop whacking things with a hammer just to ensure they're well made.

[dogwood]

thanks guys. do they crack in cold weather? i'd need a pipe that can handle northeast usa cold.

[Alan L]

I've never been particularly careful with my meerschaums, and they have not suffered for it. I would stop short of hitting one with a hammer or boiling it in acid, but it is a rock after all...

Well okay, it's sort of a rock, sort of a clay.

I've heard the horror stories from pipe shop folks as well, my wife nearly didn't buy me a nice meer once because the tobacconist told her I shouldn't smoke it when it was either cold or "overly humid." Oddly enough the only broken meers I've seen have been either stem breaks or a crack in the bowl that was obviously from someone building up too much cake. Ooh! there we go, the origin of the myth! Don't let a heavy cake build up in a meerschaum, it tends to cause cracks. Somebody blamed that on cold and/or damp weather, and there you go.

I admit I don't tend to smoke 'em out in the pouring rain or outdoors when it's below about 20 degrees, but then I don't tend to be outside smoking in that sort of weather anyway. On the other hand, I do rewax them with a propane torch and haven't had a failure yet. I figure if they can take being blasted with a torch when the ambient air is around 40 degrees, smoking them in cold weather isn't gonna do anything.

As an aside, do keep it reamed. A light cake won't hurt anything, but it will slow the coloring and block some of the absorbent qualities that are why we smoke in the stuff to begin with.

[e Markle]

anyone smoke these or are they too fragile?

I've only got one, but the very first time I smoked it, I dropped it and a small (2 or 3 mm) piece broke off. I was sitting, and it probably only fell 2 or 2.5 feet. But to be honest, that was a piece that was completely separated from the rest of the bowl; the carver had tunnelled under it. I'd guess that dropping a meerschaum billard (maybe not the lattice style) from 4 or 5 feet wouldn't do too much to it.

[dogwood]

cool. myth dispelled.

i'll probably get a cheapo to smoke outside and get a few more decretive ones for special occations. i have a buddy in the army and i'd like to get him a napoleon or a grant and don't want it to be a hassle for him- it being his first pipe.

thanks again.

[kbadkar]

Don't drop any pipe, meerschaums included. Briar gets nasty dings, chunks of rim fly off, shanks crack, and integral tenons snap.

The "delicate" part of meerschaum smoking is that you are not supposed to touch the meerschaum part of the pipe, especially while smoking and it's hot. Otherwise, the pipe won't color evenly and you'll get "ghosts" of your fingerprints. Part of the fun of meerschaum is getting it to color (from white, to semi-translucent yellow, to gold, to orange, to red, and even into black), but it takes years of smoking. For anyone's first pipe, I wouldn't tell them not to touch it and just let them enjoy the pipe smoking experience.

And they do smoke really well and are nice and light for their mass. Tobacco flavors seem cleaner and more full spectrum... maybe because (like Alan points out) I keep them cake free, thoroughly swab with pipe cleaners after use, and let it rest and dry out for weeks (not necessary, I just have a long rotation) before I smoke them again.