Old Pre-colored JTS Meerschaum

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xrundog

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 23, 2014
737
1
Ames, IA
This old timer was listed as a BIN on eBay. It had the Make Offer function open so I did. It was an easy meet in the middle deal. The telltale sunset coloring of a lightly used pre-colored old meerschaum pulled me in.

The case label says: JTS Best Make". Seems like it might be a store rebranded CPF.

I took a chance as the rim had a lot of crud on it. I was confident I could get it off, but one never knows what lurks underneath. Fortunately there's just a scratch or two. The chamber has a pierced draft hole and is in good shape. I had to sand the inner rim edge a bit to clear some knife marks. The amberoid button had a couple tooth notches that I repaired. I can't even see the repair. It's another of those pipes that has an eliptical shank and stem shape. I'm guessing 1890s or there about for a date. It's a great pipe in good original (mostly) condition!
Cased%20JTS%20Meerschaum%201_zpsyefn4srp.jpg

Cased%20JTS%20Meerschaum%202_zpsou9ui5l9.jpg


 

cobguy

Lifer
Oct 18, 2013
3,742
15
Nice!! :clap:
I also really like the botryoidal chalcedony inside that vugg!

 

posaydal

Lurker
Dec 6, 2015
42
0
Serbia
To be honest, to my eye, that beauty doesn't look precolored. To me it looks like it's heavily smoked and rewaxed before it was sold. I have a meer billiard that gets similar color when it's freshly rewaxed. Some of the color fades afterwards, of course. Anyway, a real beauty, congratulations!

Enjoy it!

 

xrundog

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 23, 2014
737
1
Ames, IA
In the late 19th-early 20th century a lot of meerschaum pipes were sold pre-colored with an "oxblood" stain and sealed. The glossy finish is indicative of that. It almost has a ceramic look. Then as the pipe was smoked, it would actually soak up some of the stain and it would lighten from the rim down. The sunset coloring is a telltale for a pre-colored pipe. That's the story I've been told. And my experience with other pipes I've had like this seems to bear that out.
Here's another one like the featured pipe.
CPFCasedMeerschaumNosewarmer_zpsa204e3d3.jpg

And here's a great big bulldog that was lightly smoked and still has all it's color.
MaxZapfcasedbent1900_zps0cc977b9.jpg


 

simong

Lifer
Oct 13, 2015
2,532
15,280
UK
BANG!!! Yet another example of Victorian workmanship, beautiful. Why did they stop treating meers like this?

Granted, if you can smoke for a hundred years or so you get the desired effect. But for most of us meer mortals the best we can achieve is a somewhat crappy/dirty looking what happened to your pipe? sort of look. Oh well, that's progress I suppose.

 

brian64

Lifer
Jan 31, 2011
9,604
14,671
Wow...those are really cool looking meers. I've never seen or heard of that oxblood staining before. Very interesting how they then lighten instead of darken. I wonder why that type of staining stopped being done.

 

condorlover1

Lifer
Dec 22, 2013
7,995
26,613
New York
I guess it went out of fashion and I would guess probably African meerschaum didn't take to that kind of coloring. Meerschaum used in the 19th century was pretty porous and so probably took the ox blood stain well. After it had been smoked and with the passage of time the meerschaum hardens up which is probably why so many old examples have survived into the 21st century.

 

xrundog

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 23, 2014
737
1
Ames, IA
There are people using colored wax these days. They all seem to be some shade of brown though. I haven't bought one so I don't know if they reverse color as the wax is absorbed.

 
Jan 10, 2014
48
2
According to Carl Avery Werner, Tobaccoland (New York, 1922), the uniform cherry-red or deep cordovan finish found on some antique pipes is quite often the result of artificial coloring. One method was to apply a paste made of aniline dyes of oxblood and Soudan brown that was burned in with an alcohol lamp. I have a straight stem billiard by William Birnbaum of Nassau Street, New York, that has an nearly uniform brown color that shows underlying variations only under intense light. The chamber walls are thin and transmits heat but it is very light so I smoke it regularly.

 
Jan 10, 2014
48
2
I checked Warner's book, Tobaccoland, and could not find the reference previously mentioned. My apology for the erroneous citation. BTW, the full text of that book is available online courtesy of the Harvard Library.

 

jpmcwjr

Moderator
Staff member
May 12, 2015
24,570
27,077
Carmel Valley, CA
OK, so how about some photos of same?
[Once your photos are on a photo hosting site (such as Imgur.com; Photobucket; Postimage; Dropbox, etc.), or on virtually any site, select the full image, then Control-click (Mac) or Right-click (Windows) on the image itself, then choose copy image location. Now paste that URL (the full web address, which should end in .jpg) into the IMG box in the reply window of the thread you're posting to.]

 
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