Apparently they mine some in Nevada to this day. Probably for cat litter.
Miners and Processors of Specialty Clays | Lhoist - Minerals and lime producer - https://www.lhoist.com/us_en/imv-nevada/
Why Algerian Briar was Highly Regarded
- Thread starter Briar Lee
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Miners and Processors of Specialty Clays | Lhoist - Minerals and lime producer - https://www.lhoist.com/us_en/imv-nevada/
There's one school of thought that believes war time briar was strawberry wood.
Yazid el Bouchemat was selling briar from Algeria for years, he's come and gone a few times, bit of a shyster to deal with, really. But there's been no real problem getting algerian briar.
The problem is it's no good for making "nice" pipes. It's dirty, pitty, soft. I've got some, I might use it some day, but having cut 15 out of the 20 or so blocks I had and gotten 14 rusticated pipes out and one mediocre smooth, I'm in no rush about using it.
It's briar.
If you think it's magic I guess it might be for you.
Ladies and gentleman, attention please!
Step right up so everyone can see!
I got a tale to tell, a listen don't cost a dime.
And if you believe that, we gonna get along just fine.
The problem is it's no good for making "nice" pipes. It's dirty, pitty, soft. I've got some, I might use it some day, but having cut 15 out of the 20 or so blocks I had and gotten 14 rusticated pipes out and one mediocre smooth, I'm in no rush about using it.
It's briar.
If you think it's magic I guess it might be for you.
Ladies and gentleman, attention please!
Step right up so everyone can see!
I got a tale to tell, a listen don't cost a dime.
And if you believe that, we gonna get along just fine.
I don't doubt that the harvesting, processing, and curing of the Mission Briar played a part, but everything I've read about it maintains that the burl quality itself was inferior to that found in the Mediterranean, which is why it was dropped once sufficient imports resumed after the war.
Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. We’re so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside…
Peanut jars make excellent humidors.What tobacco do you store in the peanut jar?
I keep several in service. They are waterproof, air tight, free, and don’t break.
If too dry you can put in an apple slice, or a commercial humidifier. If too wet, crack the lid.
With the money I save, I buy huge old Algerian briar pipes!.
How many bowls a day do you smoke?Peanut jars make excellent humidors.
I keep several in service. They are waterproof, air tight, free, and don’t break.
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If too dry you can put in an apple slice, or a commercial humidifier. If too wet, crack the lid.
With the money I save, I buy huge old Algerian briar pipes!.
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I like that Marxman. Basic, clean, beautiful. I've always preferred the classic looking pipes.
When I’d trod along after the men in Spout Spring Hollow fifty some years ago all those hardwood trees looked all alike to me, but Harry Hosterman knew the differences.
Today I can halfway, sometimes tell a red oak from a pin oak from a white oak but Harry knew which white oaks would be accepted at Lebanon for stave bolts.
Only the first ten feet of certain sized white oak trees can make a good bourbon barrel.
Those grow in places folks that don’t speak Ozark American seldom go. Its native timber so rocky, and hilly and riddled with ravines the pioneer farmers, even the Indians before them, had no use for it. There’s an almost unbroken canopy of tree tops above your head, and no land marks. One place looks like another. How they did it is beyond my explanation how they navigated, but my father could take Harry back in Spout Spring Hollow to a certain white oak tree, and Harry would either pass on it or might walk all around it and say it had potential for stave bolts.
Harry had to saw it and see, then if it was good we’d leave and he’d go fetch his truck and a team of mules to drag it out.
If stave bolt grade it brought many times what an oak for firewood was worth.
I can remember thinking if the tree fell on Daddy and Harry I was a goner, lost in Spout Spring Hollow forever.
Back in the heyday of the Algerian briar market there no doubt were Algerian Harry Hostermans supplying Marxman, and others.
The potential for good Algerian briar is probably as good as it ever was, if there were briar harvesters induced to go to the wilds of the heath scrub forests in Algeria.
Some random guy selling blocks of briar doesn’t bode well for the restoration of the reputation of Algerian briar, you know?
not worth as much as other mines that are just as hard to get into. It would certainly take the right kind of eccentric to get them open again.
On to the original subject. The few algerian pieces I've gotten experience with did feel different and the grain looked different to me. They fell softer like if you press on them there is a slight give. And it makes sense that any plant grown under different conditions would have different qualities. Even with other briars the softer feeling one (easier to gouge with a finger nail) seem to smoke sweeter then the others. So for me it doesn't take a leap to imagine a burl that grew under harsher conditions would be softer and that would change how it smokes.
Could be a myth but like Prometheus it makes so much sense.
Barling and Comoy did their own harvesting in Algeria, as their literature attests. Others bought from brokers.
I smoke an ounce or about that in a lot of different pipes every day.
The majority of what I smoke is Smoker’s Pride Cherry Cavendish, but I have dozens of blends, and six pounds of PS Luxury Navy Flake aging.
As I’ve said before, I buy tobacco so I can play with all my pretty pipes I’ve accumulated.
I accumulate pipes, a collector has a plan and a purpose.
Here’s a short stemmed pipe with a rather large bowl stamped only Straight Grain-Algerian Briar-France.
The fill on the shank kept it off the top shelf, and into a basket, or maybe sold mail order by Wally Frank.
But the plateaux of Algerian briar that was cut from was more than a half century old, maybe closer to a century, it had to be cured three years and likely aged a few more, and oil treatment was common to harden them.
My Luxury Navy Flake smokes cool, sweet and dry in it.
The button is plumb gone, on my Algerian Straight Grain, and I file on a new one a little each time I bring it out.
Wouldn’t it make a nice Churchwarden?
Part of the fun of this, is pipe dreaming.
There certainly was a mystique about Algerian briar, and its softness made possible the deeply craggy blasts from Dunhill in the '20's and '30's, as well as the later blasts that Barling did in the '30's and '40's, and possibly earlier if a dateable early Nibblick ever shows up.
Interestingly, Algerian briar was not thought of as the best quality in late 19th century and early 20th due to concerns over its softness and issues with cracking. Barling and Comoy certainly figured out how to get the best from it.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Interestingly, Algerian briar was not thought of as the best quality in late 19th century and early 20th due to concerns over its softness and issues with cracking. Barling and Comoy certainly figured out how to get the best from it.
The rest, as they say, is history.
I love this forum, and I learn something new every day.
Spain and Ireland were both neutral during WW2, and if they could have figured a way around Hitler’s submarines there were plenty of strawberry trees to export.
Arbutus unedo - Wikipedia
Real briar, what we use today and what was used before WW2 came from the burl root of the heath shrub growing on poor soil on the rim of the Mediterranean and no place else.
America had orchards of fruit trees past their prime. Cutting down the old trees and planting crops or vegetables made economic sense. That would explain the fruitwood pipes.
But the rest of the briar substitutes came from shrubs as close to heath as they could find.
Thanks for bringing up strawberry wood.
I do like strawberry wood pipes very much. I've got three large ones, they're light for their sizes, and blast very well.I love this forum, and I learn something new every day.
Spain and Ireland were both neutral during WW2, and if they could have figured a way around Hitler’s submarines there were plenty of strawberry trees to export.
Arbutus unedo - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
Real briar, what we use today and what was used before WW2 came from the burl root of the heath shrub growing on poor soil on the rim of the Mediterranean and no place else.
America had orchards of fruit trees past their prime. Cutting down the old trees and planting crops or vegetables made economic sense. That would explain the fruitwood pipes.
But the rest of the briar substitutes came from shrubs as close to heath as they could find.
Thanks for bringing up strawberry wood.
Besides fruit wood, Mission Briar, and perhaps other heather like shrubs such as strawberry trees, in the South spoon wood, also called mountain laurel, was used for pipes during and right after WW2.
en.m.wikipedia.org
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Wikipedia
The wood of the mountain laurel is heavy and strong but brittle, with a close, straight grain.[20] It has never been a viable commercial crop as it does not grow large enough,[21] yet it is suitable for wreaths, furniture, bowls and other household items.[20] It was used in the early 19th century in wooden-works clocks.[22] Root burls were used for pipe bowls in place of imported briar burls unattainable during World War II.[21] It can be used for handrails or guard rails.
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The worst problem with mountain laurel is all parts of the plants are poisionous.
Hopefully the toxins were removed by boiling, before made into Dr. Grabow pipes at Sparta, North Carolina, and other pipe factories.
Of the briar substitutes other than fruitwoods, all were made of the root burls of the heather family, just not the Mediterranean heath shrub that grew around the Med. They used the burl, not the trunk or limbs. Of those, manzanita got the most press and survived the war a few years.
rebornpipes.com
The more I study the subject, the more I’m convinced genuine briar roots from the Mediterranean are used for wooden pipes nearly exclusively (when affordable) today for two reasons. The first is vanity, it looks better and is easier to fashion into pipes.
The second reason is they provide the best smoke.
Kalmia latifolia - Wikipedia
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Wikipedia
The wood of the mountain laurel is heavy and strong but brittle, with a close, straight grain.[20] It has never been a viable commercial crop as it does not grow large enough,[21] yet it is suitable for wreaths, furniture, bowls and other household items.[20] It was used in the early 19th century in wooden-works clocks.[22] Root burls were used for pipe bowls in place of imported briar burls unattainable during World War II.[21] It can be used for handrails or guard rails.
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The worst problem with mountain laurel is all parts of the plants are poisionous.
Hopefully the toxins were removed by boiling, before made into Dr. Grabow pipes at Sparta, North Carolina, and other pipe factories.
Of the briar substitutes other than fruitwoods, all were made of the root burls of the heather family, just not the Mediterranean heath shrub that grew around the Med. They used the burl, not the trunk or limbs. Of those, manzanita got the most press and survived the war a few years.
Mission Briar Monterey Specimen Grain Pipes – rebornpipes
Posts about Mission Briar Monterey Specimen Grain Pipes written by rebornpipes
rebornpipes.com
The more I study the subject, the more I’m convinced genuine briar roots from the Mediterranean are used for wooden pipes nearly exclusively (when affordable) today for two reasons. The first is vanity, it looks better and is easier to fashion into pipes.
The second reason is they provide the best smoke.
funny how things are just different.... But then one becomes rare for whatever reason, suddenly it's just superior. I guess as people we like to believe the special things we have that others don't are just the best.
One substitute for briar in the U.S. during World War II was Mountain Laurel. I know of only one artisan pipe maker who still uses it, along with briar and some maple and a few other woods, and that Is Jerry Perry of Colfax, N.C. He sells only at the N.C. State Fair Village of Yesteryear and the TAPS pipe show, also at the fairgrounds when the show is happening.
Mountain Laurel has a less defined grain than briar but seems as durable and suitable. It's light weight for size.
Mountain Laurel has a less defined grain than briar but seems as durable and suitable. It's light weight for size.
For the money, same reason most people do hard labor.
The old timers like my father and Harry Hosterman that kept their eyes peeled for white oak stave bolt trees for bourbon barrels were highly religious, complete teetotalers, most of whom still championed Prohibtion.
Those briar harvesters in colonial Algeria were most all devout Muslims, who didn’t smoke. The poem Bingen on the Rhine was required reading when I was a child by our devout Christian mothers to teach us the history of Christians in France attempting (without ultimate success) to convert Algeria to Christianity and the toll religious wars take.
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"Bingen on the Rhine" is a poem by 19th century poet Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton (1808-1877). It was first published in 1867. In February 1877, Gilbert Blythe recited it at the Debating Club concert on Diana Barry's birthday.
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Where the briar thickets are in Algeria, and the States of North Carolina where mountain laurel was found and California where mission briar grew were economic wastelands. Heather only grows well on poor soils, and it only lives long enough to harvest the burls where it’s not cleared by fire or cutting for grazing.
The Muslims of Algeria today are free, to worship as they please, but they cannot offend the Prophet.
Freedom of religion in Algeria - Wikipedia
The foreign Christians who organized and ran the briar burl markets in Algeria are long gone.
But unless they use Roundup and Remedy like us modern day Ozark Americans do, the briar thickets are still there.
Oregon Myrtle is another member of the Laurel family that grows here on the Oregon coast. It is a beautiful, expensive wood that is often carved and turned into bowls, art, and assorted other items. I haven't heard of anyone here making pipes from it, but I'm sure it would be possible.
I posted of photo of my newly acquired smoking bench a while back, carved from some rare large sections of Oregon Myrtle.
I posted of photo of my newly acquired smoking bench a while back, carved from some rare large sections of Oregon Myrtle.
Last year, they declared Islam as the state religion. They still say there is freedom of religion. However, people of other religions are already getting a bit of push, and the government flat out said anything that goes against Islam is a big no no. I seriously doubt anyone in right mind will go look for briar. Money's good, but briar isn't exactly diamond.For the money, same reason most people do hard labor.
The old timers like my father and Harry Hosterman that kept their eyes peeled for white oak stave bolt trees for bourbon barrels were highly religious, complete teetotalers, most of whom still championed Prohibtion.
Those briar harvesters in colonial Algeria were most all devout Muslims, who didn’t smoke. The poem Bingen on the Rhine was required reading when I was a child by our devout Christian mothers to teach us the history of Christians in France attempting (without ultimate success) to convert Algeria to Christianity and the toll religious wars take.
—-
"Bingen on the Rhine" is a poem by 19th century poet Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton (1808-1877). It was first published in 1867. In February 1877, Gilbert Blythe recited it at the Debating Club concert on Diana Barry's birthday.
——
Where the briar thickets are in Algeria, and the States of North Carolina where mountain laurel was found and California where mission briar grew were economic wastelands. Heather only grows well on poor soils, and it only lives long enough to harvest the burls where it’s not cleared by fire or cutting for grazing.
The Muslims of Algeria today are free, to worship as they please, but they cannot offend the Prophet.
Freedom of religion in Algeria - Wikipedia
The foreign Christians who organized and ran the briar burl markets in Algeria are long gone.
But unless they use Roundup and Remedy like us modern day Ozark Americans do, the briar thickets are still there.