No kidding, I ordered two meers from SPC's estate sale yesterday. ?
Coloring Progress Over Time/No of Bowls in one Meerschaum Pipe
- Thread starter cshubhra
- Start date
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You have earned it! Let's see!
If you smoke a meerschaum pipe be wary of a Southern gentlemen with a fret saw!
So if you had 1 pound of tobacco (even number for my brain) for a small meer, and a pound for a larger meer, would one color faster than the other based on bowl size? Like one big bowl versus 2 bowls half the size?
pseudo coloring?
Look, this isn't my thread and I don't know if @cshubhra wants it to be a debate thread but I'll argue with you whenever I feel like it, without killing a pipe. The coloring of a meer happens in a dynamic fashion and you cut one open in a static state, one in the very early stages of coloring, thinking you proved a point. Sorry you sacrificed your pipe for that.
The other day I cleaned the outside of one of my meers as it was collect finger dirt. Using a wet papertowel I wiped the bowl down. Took all the dirt off, and some of the coloring. The only part that was not affected was the top edge of the bowl.
Cut half one Meer that is totally black. Then we will see is the whole wall is black or not.
Well. ...now just cut that big Kenan skull to check how it is coloring....Lol
Some great looking pipes.
If I'm honest, not a lover of meers, but I do respect & appreciate other owner's opinions.
Heck! I wasn't a huge fan, or for that matter, any other kind of fan of bent pipes. Now I'm talking with a Fraser about a commission.
Damn. This hobby'll getcha!
If I'm honest, not a lover of meers, but I do respect & appreciate other owner's opinions.
Heck! I wasn't a huge fan, or for that matter, any other kind of fan of bent pipes. Now I'm talking with a Fraser about a commission.
Damn. This hobby'll getcha!
I'm pretty sure everyone agrees the blackened shank there is true coloring.
I think that happened starting on pg 1 and we're on 4 now.
I'm really trying to consider your side of this debate but I don't know what that means...and Embers makes a compelling case.
This may be the only way to definitively end this. @weezell may have to donate one of those problem pipes LOL.
I might support the theory that heated wax colors the pipe, but then the bowl should color first, and not the shank. I'm more convinced that it's the moisture and tar that colors the pipe.
It surely is, and I wonder what that pipe looked like after 20, 500, and 1000 smokes. I'm betting it all started just like many of our pipes do, with a little discoloration that continues to deepen. The pipe shown has no coloring at the heel.
His case is that the color we see at the beginning is from heat and handling (pseudo coloring as he puts it) of the pipe and doesn't originate from within. I truly scratch my head every time I see this. My claim is that the pipe colors from the particulates from combusted tobacco migrating throughout the pipe from the first puff and that they move and settle throughout the smoking life. The color looks to fade when it sits unsmoked and reappears when smoking begins again. It never left, just receded or dissipated throughout the block temporarily. That's what I mean by dynamic.
You smoke meers and you've smoked them longer than embers and I put together. Do you think the early coloring is from heat and handling of the pipe? (If you say yes, we can't be friends
) That's really all this is about.
Short answer is I don't know.
I really never gave it any thought until this question started coming up on the forum. I guess I just assumed it was coming from the inside out...but as I said, Embers does make a compelling case.
I've noticed that each meer seems to color at its own pace, but they do all seem to darken at the shank first, and as @TheWhale13 said, it does seem like it should be the bowl first based on Embers' argument...that seems to be the weakest part of his case, but there may be an explanation for that?
The coloring is very slow. This Baki has the most mileage on it of any of mine, and as expected, it's quite obvious where the coloring concentrates...hardly any on the bowl.
The entire theory of wax heating is disproved by shank coloring. The color increasing over time is probably just the accumulation of colored particles which darkens it more?
Probably has more to do with the density of the material used to make the pipe.
Wax and waxing are red herrings in this debate.
Further, no proof has been offered that wax is at all necessary, except to keep the pipe clean during display and prior to a sale and smoking,
Further, no proof has been offered that wax is at all necessary, except to keep the pipe clean during display and prior to a sale and smoking,
Kenan and Yanik told me the same thing. The wax is just there to protect the material.
Looking at this meerschaum coloring at the shank seems to be all the way through the material