Thanks everyone!
Phil - The stem is acrylic. I'm not sure a fordite stem that you put in your mouth would work very well, not durable enough or taste very good. And in thinking about it, I'm sure I'd be paying more for the fordite chunks than I sold the entire pipe for in this case. There were some fordite chunks for sale in Chicago and they were crazy prices, and if they came from a "corvette" factory, somehow that made them triple the cost of the "ford" variety.