How should I deal with this issue?

I recently picked up a BC Montmartre pipe with what I feel is likely the most beautiful sandblasted finish that I am likely to find at my favorite tobacco dealer for the price while I remain underemployed. I won't name the shop because I don't want to name names right now, and chances are it has personnel who are here on this forum. For the past few years I have been nothing but happy with this store, and they have been nothing but courteous. They offered a full refund for the issue which I brought the pipe back in for, but being that I am unlikely to find a wood-grain and overall style which I find to be nearly as satisfying for the price in a different make, I'm having a hard time with taking them up on that. The pipe is not Peterson, I know, but it isn't dirt-cheap either, and it just caused me a problem which even the cheapest drugstore pipe would never have. I just felt that the company and any dealer who sells their pipes should be red-faced about this problem, and show interest in rectifying it instead of letting their consumers down like this.
The problem is with the stem, and what BC (or the dealer) calls vulcanite. I own several vulcanite-stem pipes, so I found this a bit strange, and I can't imagine how anybody wouldn't find the discolaration of this after smoking it just once disturbing. lt that somebody should make good when it instantly began to look like hell after smoking it just once. What, am I the only pipe smoker who didn't expect a vulcanite stem to have the look of rubbed-on and smudged shoe polish, with chips in that finish where my teeth had carefully (not at all hard) gripped it? Underneath that weak finish is something lighter, a sickly greenish some kind of shit. I am sort of new to pipe smoking, but hardly a beginner - I own several pipes with vulcanite stems, got one with Lucite, and none of them melt after being in my mouth.
With the stem being the only problem with this pipe, I didn't expect this to be a problem for the dealer to fix. I know they're all different, with different fittings, but the manufacturer must have had multiple complaints, fixed what seemed a likely production problem, and would send a new one through multiple dealers who relayed so many such complaints. This didn't happen through the store where I bought this pipe. I asked my dealer (who is not the owner) if he could send it to the manufacturer for mitigation, but he only appeared doubtful that this would resolve the problem. I know they're in Fraaaance, but they still need to guard some degree of respectability with American dealers, so I would hope. Is there some other problem, or something about different types of stem finishings which I'm missing intel on? What would you do in this situation?

Jkrug, what did you use to polish your stem? Any compound? I'm guessing it wasn't really shoe polish.

Mctinner1, that was my first thought after the stem got ugly, that this was a bad estate pipe restoration. I actually thought I was buying an estate pipe, after talking to a shop clerk who appeared to understand what he was talking about. However, both he and the store owner who I also spoke with insisted that it was not an estate. Therefore, I am much interested in anyone else's experience with this make, and others who have pipes with it's finish style. It isn't jet black and shiny like most vulcanite stems are made, but has a flatter, dark brown finish which covers something lighter and nasty-looking underneath.
Question a: Is the owner's claim a probable lie?
Question b: If not, then is it unheard of for vulcanite to be produced in greenish brown (perhaps natural colored?), and then finished over with something?

Samcoffeeman, the store owner did insist that the pipe was actually new, and that's after I complained.

No, no, no, no, no - not an estate pipe! So the store owner maintains. Which is why I need to know how common or unusual this problem is with any new pipe which is said to be with a "vulcanite" stem, especially when it never looked like common vulcanite to begin with. This is the first pipe stem which I have ever seen which came in more of a matte finish in dark brown, as opposed to the common jet black and glossy-finish which you know is vulcanite. I thought the stem was really a trendy new acryllic until the clerk inisted that it's vulcanite. Can anyone explain this?

Thanks, all you guys, for so much illuminating information!
As I understand the situation now, what happened was not what I thought I was seeing. I thought it looked like a rubbed-on, dark brown compound with a matte finish which otherwise appeared to be pristine, which began washing away with my saliva. It seemed that would be likely because if that stem was really vulcanite, I had never before seen a vulcanite stem with a clean, matte-brown finish before. However, this is not the case, it is poorly-made, or long-exposed vulcanite just breaking down.
The above brings up another question: Is it unusual for good vulcanite in a healthy state to be any color other than shiny jet black, or is the dark matte brown a sign that I shouldn't buy the pipe without being prepared to polish the stem often or replace it?