High Grade El Kala El Morjane

[Briar Lee]

This thread claims these simple oil cured
Algerian made pipes were produced from 1940-1962.

What Are You Smoking September 2022 - Page 40 - Pipe Smokers Forums

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I own about four others, all very crudely made.

But today I discovered they made a high grade:



The pipe was new, and waxed.

One smoke later



Oil cured Algerian was beyond duplication

 

[cynyr]

I have an El Morjane that always gives satisfaction, but it's as ugly as an empty glass of buttermilk.

 

[Briarcutter]

ugly as an empty glass of buttermilk

Never heard that one.

 

[Briar Lee]

Google AI

——

During the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962), El Kala, a coastal town in eastern Algeria, was a strategic location and a site of intense conflict, with the French army establishing a presence and the FLN (National Liberation Front) operating in the area.

Here's a more detailed look at El Kala's role during the Algerian War:

• French Presence and Infrastructure:
  The French established a significant presence in El Kala, building a Bastion de France (trading center) and utilizing the area for its strategic location on the coast.
  
  
• FLN Activity:
  The FLN, fighting for Algerian independence, also operated in and around El Kala, engaging in guerrilla warfare against the French forces.
  
  
• Conflict and Casualties:
  The Algerian War resulted in significant casualties and destruction in the region, with both French and Algerian forces engaging in combat in and around El Kala.
  
  
• War Crimes:
  War crimes committed during the war included massacres of civilians, rape, and torture; the French destroyed over 8,000 villages and relocated over 2 million Algerians to concentration camps
  
  
• ———

I wonder if the seemingly limitless stash of these for sale brand new on eBay were evacuated or captured during the Fall of El Kala.

Two smokes and its colored as oxblood as my high grade Marxman Benchgrade smooth Dublin.



It’s still here in the even tide.

I can almost hear these pipes singing sweet and low.

They would have had from March to July to ship these over to mainland France:

—

The Evian agreements of March 18, 1962 and the cease-fire they instituted, ended the war between the French army and the Algerian National Liberation Army (ALN) and began a “transitional period,” which ended with the referendum of self-determination on July 1, 1962. The resounding “yes” vote led to the transfer of sovereignty from the French to the Algerian authorities on July, 3 and to the official celebration of Independence on July 5. The date of July 5th had been deliberately chosen by the Algerian provisional Government as a historical reference to July 5, 1830, when the city of Algiers had surrendered to the French occupiers: it thus marked 1962 as a reversal of French occupation, which had lasted for 132 years. A few days after the founding of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, in September, Ahmed Ben Bella—its soon to be first president—declared that colonization had been “an accident in history,” and that Independence thus closed a digression, or a parenthesis, in the country’s history.

 

[Waning Embers]

After 100 smokes.

 

[Briar Lee]

They keep on turning a deep brownish red.



No wonder Dunhill bought enough to last until 1968.

And he about had to sandblast every one.

A flawless piece would be one of thousands.

 

[telescopes]

I don’t know if smoking this pipe is improving it?

 

[Briar Lee]

Algeria Travel Advisory

travel.state.gov

The heather shrubs are still there up in the hills. They’ve been growing unharvested since 1962.

The demand for Algerian briar is about one hundred times less.

And with all this stash of genuine new examples for sale on eBay there’s no need to make more out of Algerian briar.

New



Three smokes



These are sort of like early Simmons Do Nut Post Winchester Model 12s with expert carved Fajen or Bishop stocks. If examples did not exist people would deny them as impossible.

1945 production serial numbers

For Curtis LeMay? Some other Army big shot who loved trap? Christmas 1945?




New Sile Forend

Google AI

—-
Donut post" or "round post donut base" ribs, often associated with Simmons Gun Specialties, are aftermarket ribs installed on Winchester Model 12 shotguns, featuring a round post with an enlarged base.

Here's a more detailed explanation:

• Simmons Ribs:
  Simmons Gun Specialties was a company that produced aftermarket ribs for Winchester Model 12 shotguns.
  
  
• "Donut Post" or "Round Post Donut Base":
  These ribs are characterized by having round posts with a wider, donut-shaped base.
  
  
• Aftermarket Installation:
  These ribs were not originally manufactured by Winchester but were installed on the barrels after they were sent to Simmons.
  
  
• Offset Proof Marks:
  Because the rib was installed after the original proof marks were made by Winchester, the proof marks are often offset from the center of the barrel and receiver.
  
  
• Production Timeline:
  The Simmons ribs, including the "donut post" style, were produced starting in 1945.
  

 

[ben229]

Who is the seller?

 

[Briar Lee]

Who is the seller?

He’s either ashamed they are El Kala El Morjane pipes or doesn’t know what they were.

 

[Briar Lee]

After 100 smokes.
View attachment 382776

I try and teach myself something new every day.

If you had one pipe, and smoked it five times a day, in a little over three months, a hundred days, you’d have smoked it 500 times. In two years, 730 days, your El Kala El Morjane would have turned black as a stove from 3,650 smokes. You’d buy another one, if not before then.

They are all small bore for a quick smoke and fit in a shirt pocket.

These just about had to be general issue to French forces in Algeria, or maybe whatever sutler service the French armed forces used sold them. And they made them with the usual overstock all military contracts have. This accounts for huge caches of new pipes. They are French military surplus, until there’s a better explanation for them. The French must have shipped them to the mainland to deny the rebels the spoils of war.

Sort of an Algerian French martial Dr Grabow.



There’s an article somewhere in Pipe Lover’s Magazine of some incredible war surplus of pipes in US stores after WW2.

The French government must have taken about fifty years after they lost the war, to auction off their surplus.

 

[Briar Lee]

Here’s the January 1946 announcement in Pipe Lover’s magazine of a 300 million dollar auction of OPA price controlled surplus pipes and tobacco pouches.



America was so wasteful fighting WW2 we achieved total victory in a two front war against peer adversaries with lots of help from our friends.

We bought at least 50 million surplus pipes. That sounds like a lot, but we had 16 million men in uniforms.

If the French only wasted 1/100 as much to lose in Algeria that’s 500,000 El Morjanes.

 

[Briarcutter]

Here’s the January 1946 announcement in Pipe Lover’s magazine of a 300 million dollar auction of OPA price controlled surplus pipes and tobacco pouches.

View attachment 382860

America was so wasteful fighting WW2 we achieved total victory in a two front war against peer adversaries with lots of help from our friends.

We bought at least 50 million surplus pipes. That sounds like a lot, but we had 16 million men in uniforms.

If the French only wasted 1/100 as much to lose in Algeria that’s 500,000 El Morjanes.

May be a typo, 300 million sounds like a lot, even for the gooberment to invest in pipes, especially in the 1940's.

 

[Sam Whiskey]

View attachment 382830

He’s either ashamed they are El Kala El Morjane pipes or doesn’t know what they were.

What is the title of the listing?

Can’t find it by the username.

 

[Briar Lee]

May be a typo, 300 million sounds like a lot, even for the gooberment to invest in pipes, especially in the 1940's.

It does sound ridiculous, doesn’t it?

But since we had 16 million men in the service, we had to feed them 48 million meals each day, and they had to waste a lot of that.

300 million would have built three Iowa class battleships, or 500 B-29 bombers.

But if a pipe was $3 and a pouch $2, that’s 60 million pipes.

Ask the Japanese and Germans how expensive it is to lose a war.

In one of those Pipe Lover’s Magazines there’s a survey the government did that determined before the war there were 30 million pipes a year produced in the USA.

So in the event, Uncle Sam didn’t ration pipes (or tobacco) but they had the Office of Price Adminstration freeze civilian prices.

But the military paid what it cost plus ten per cent for military orders.

And to keep the workers happy at 90 cents an hour, they allowed contractors to provide “free” health insurance and add the cost to the contracts, which turned out to be the model for big business ever since.

As to Algeria, if it’s true those small El Morjane pipes were made 1940-62 in El Kala, they’d just nearly had to have been for French occupation troops.

The reason for the reddish brown color was the oil cure seeping out.

And, the French would have contracted with local French contractors.

In March 1962, there was a race back to France.

 

[Briarcutter]

300 million would have built three Iowa class battleships

The government probably couldn't buy an anchor for that price today

 

[Briar Lee]

The government probably couldn't buy an anchor for that price today

It depends a whole lot on how many the military buys and what their specs are.

During the American Civil War, the government had to feed, put in uniform, and arm just over 2 million men, and bury 300,000 dead soldiers and mark their graves, and care for almost another 300,000 severely wounded men that lived. There were 30,000 amputees.

The South had to do a little less, but they lost.

80 years later, just buying 16 million boys cigarettes and coffee was astronomical but they bought commercial grade stuff, likely at a volume discount, at the contractor's cost plus ten per cent. But, they taxed the profits at 95% over a million dollars a year.

But developing a super bomber, the B-29 eventually, to carry atom bombs, cost well over three billion dollars, to carry atom bombs that only cost two billion.


In modern money the USA spent four trillion dollars from 1940-5 to win WW2.

Next year, the federal deficit will be half that.

True, we have three times the population and many, many times larger economy, but still—every two years we put a World War Two on the credit card.