Briar and Meerschaum Combo

I've been eyeing up a couple shapes with the 'lined' feature as well (a Genod and Brebbia, specifically). I'd like to know more as well if anyone has any knowledge or input.

I've had a couple of meer lined pipes over the and am not one to disparage them. I still miss my old Ropp. A sweet smoking pipe it was.

I have two meer lined Kaywoodies. One is sweet, the other was filled with years of tar in the shank and I'm still cleaning this one. I am hoping the dirty one will smoke as well as the first after it is clean.
So far I've used over 40 Q-tips with 91% iso alcohol and it is still very dirty. I tend to get discouraged because my cheapy Q-tips keep losing the cotton part in the shank, and I had to bend a thin wire to remove the cotton. I am avoiding using a retort because I know you should avoid alcohol in a meer.
I also have two fairly good meerschaums, one is an I Becker CAO, the other is from S Yanik. I like the kaywoodie as much as either of these meers.

Yeah a retort will probably eat the meer out of the bowl too. I've had that happen.

The easy answer is that it is probably lower quality meerschaum, not pressed meerschaum. I believe Meerqueen has posted that they haven't made pressed meerschaum in a long-time though an older estate may still be using it. Either way, it's not going to give the same quality smoke as a higher quality block meerschaum.
Whether it's a pleasant smoke and equal to a similarly priced briar is a different question. It probably will be quite nice at first. My concern is always cleaning those meer-lined bowls as it seems the worst of both worlds in terms of maintenance - having to deal with the problems of both materials. I avoid estate meerschaums for the cleaning aspect and a meer-lined bowl would fall into the same category without the wonderful coloring benefits of a meer pipe.
I'm sure that meer-lined pipes have their champions but personally, I'd suggest going whole-hog into a nice block meerschaum.

My experience with meerschaum-lined briars is that they want to be "the best of both worlds" but wind up being an unsatisfying compromise that doesn't show off the best features of either material. You're better off going with either a real block meerschaum or an unlined briar.
That's not to say you can't have an enjoyable smoke out of a meer-lined pipe. I mean, people used to enjoy smoking tobacco out of a hole in the ground. So a meer-lined pipe would be a step up from that, for sure.
Bob

I have a meerlined bulldog I picked up while in Spokane Washington. It was used but smokes pretty good to me, so no complaints.

Forgot to mention the Peterson Kapmeer that I really enjoy smoking.

The beauty of my old Ropp was that I didn't hesitate to smoke it while out and about, so I could enjoy the meer experience without endangering the more common but expensive solid meershaum. It did smoke cool and provided a pure taste. All and all a thoroughly enjoyable pipe, inexpensive and ugly as it was.

Sorry but any advices where I can buy them, cause I am from Australia and here is nothing of those avaliable