Smoking My First Meerschaum

This is the very first Meer I've purchased and believe it or not, the first one I've ever even touched. I was surprised at how "plastic-y" the Meer itself feels. If not for the inside of bowl being clay-like, I would almost believe it was plastic...
The stem appears to be genuine amber. It feels a lot like lucite, which I know wasn't invented back in the early 1900s.
The smoke itself is very dry, just as I had heard. The flavor of the tobacco seems untainted compared to my briars. I've only just started, but really impressed so far.



From my research about this pipe:
The brand was created by Jean Sommer in 1855 and produced in Paris, France. His sons continued the business producing meerschaum as well as briar pipes. The production stopped in 1935 but the brand's shop named "Aux carrieres d'ecume" (13 et 15 passage des princes, Paris) kept on with commercial activity until 1988. The logo on some is a gold sun with a white horizontal bar, or just a white bar alone on the side of the stem.

After smoking 3 (tiny) bowls, I have to say that I need to smoke it some more to get a feel for it.
Has anyone smoked a pipe with an amber stem before? This one almost seems to give the pipe a slightly plastic taste. But it is a very dry smoke, which is quite nice.

Thanks guys - really appreciate the feedback.
Rothnh - thanks for that. I must be dense, because to me, if someone told me the stem was lucite, I wouldn't question it.
TopD - I was shocked that the bowl was white. Correct me if I am wrong, but this would mean it's never been smoked, yes? One cannot scrape away the tobacco stain, correct? There are parts of the pipe that make me think it was smoked before and other parts that cause me to think it's never been smoked before.
For ex., the stem hole was slightly darkened - not pure white - and the entire bowl itself has a yellow tints spread all around (not uniform like it's been waxed, but spotty like it's been smoked).
I wish I had more experience with meers to know what I have. My guess is that it's an African meer with an Amber stem. In fact, if it weren't for the case (which is clearly old, fits the pipe like a glove and is dated to be early 1900s) I would suspect this is a recent pipe.