Experimenting With a Marxman

[Briar Lee]

For $20 delivered this oxblood colored NYC production Marxman will arrive today. It’s my working theory the last production at 27 W 24th was stamped Algerian Briar after the 1953 sale to Mastercraft. This is the second one I’ve seen stamped Algerian and I bought both.



The first experiment I’ll do is soak this in Murphy’s Oil Soap for an hour after I get all that cake out, which should be easy. One of the defining characteristics of Pre Algerian War briar is cake doesn’t “stick” to the bowl walls, for whatever reason.

Then I intend to see if the oxblood color is just a whisker thick on the outside by dressing the damaged rim with a file.

It’s my theory top grade Algerian colors exactly like a meerschaum, the middle of the wall will be light tan, and the oxblood color is tars and perhaps resins driven to the outside by heat. Top grade Algerian (as graded by Colonial French inspectors) was phenomenally heat resistant, dense, light, and yet porous and soft so as to be easy to carve.

Then I may use coffee grounds to refresh it.

For twenty bucks, I can’t lose much.

 

[Briarcutter]

For $20 delivered this oxblood colored NYC production Marxman will arrive today. It’s my working theory the last production at 27 W 24th was stamped Algerian Briar after the 1953 sale to Mastercraft. This is the second one I’ve seen stamped Algerian and I bought both.

View attachment 381365View attachment 381366 View attachment 381367View attachment 381368View attachment 381369

The first experiment I’ll do is soak this in Murphy’s Oil Soap for an hour after I get all that cake out, which should be easy. One of the defining characteristics of Pre Algerian War briar is cake doesn’t “stick” to the bowl walls, for whatever reason.

Then I intend to see if the oxblood color is just a whisker thick on the outside by dressing the damaged rim with a file.

It’s my theory top grade Algerian colors exactly like a meerschaum, the middle of the wall will be light tan, and the oxblood color is tars and perhaps resins driven to the outside by heat.

Then I may use coffee grounds to refresh it.

For twenty bucks, I can’t lose much.

That cake looks just about right to me. That baby will smoke sweet as a nut! Looks like he rapped out his ashes on the sidewalk

 

[ssjones]

The original owner was a writer in NYC who worked in the Brill Building. Every day, after work, he knocked out the ashes on the brick near the door and reloaded for his walk to the subway then home.

 

[Briarcutter]

The original owner was a writer in NYC who worked in the Brill Building. Every day, after work, he knocked out the ashes on the brick near the door and reloaded for his walk to the subway then home.
View attachment 381376

You just making that up?

 

[gervais]

Damn, now there is a well enjoyed pipe!

 

[ssjones]

You just making that up?

Piggy-backing off Briar Lee's assumption:

It’s my working theory the last production at 27 W 24th was stamped Algerian Briar after the 1953 sale to Mastercraft.

 

[Briarcutter]

Piggy-backing off Briar Lee's assumption:

Good theory!

 

[Sigmund]

Murphys smells like hell. I would not use it in a pipe.

I also wouldnt soak a pipe to get cake out. If it doesnt stick it will easlily release with slightly dull and small pocket knife.

 

[didimauw]

Murphys smells like hell. I would not use it in a pipe.

I also wouldnt soak a pipe to get cake out. If it doesnt stick it will easlily release with slightly dull and small pocket knife.

The worst smell ever hahahaha

 

[telescopes]

Ahhh.... always the most ugly extreme examples of this genre of pipe.

Why?

 

[Briar Lee]

First, this pipe wasn’t made by 4-F labor during the Korean War price freeze.

It’s a true bench made Benchmade “A”

No Crown (or Algeria?) stamp, no Imported Briar stamp, and there must have been a B for this one to rate an A stamp.




The cake just almost fell out.



Murphy’s is miraculous



I’ve rinsed it with hot water for five minutes and it’s drying in the sun.

Let’s see the results later.

Louis Cowan was a magician.

One smoke



Sometime about the time of the price controls of the Korean War Cowan oil cured the briar so that just one smoke would turn the entire pipe oxblood.


This must have been the Benchmade series Cowan made until he died, not the POS French and Italian stuff Mastercraft peddled.

It tastes as good as when Hank Locklin released Send Me The Pillow

 

[Sigmund]

Id reshape the top. Make it like a Marxman with a wind break in front. Lower the back half and get rid of the damage, then reshape it into a modern iteration.

Sorry...I will never smoke murphys. nasty stuff lol

 

[Sigmund]

 

[telescopes]

Sometime about the time of the price controls of the Korean War Cowan oil cured the briar so that just one smoke would turn the entire pipe oxblood.

This must have been the Benchmade series Cowan made until he died, not the POS French and Italian stuff Mastercraft peddled.

In all seriousness, for the Pipesmagazine historical record, everything listed in the above quote is pure conjecture and made up.

You really need to preference your comments with bullshit conjecture warnings so that future readers are aware that you are engaging in some fiction.

Robert Marx was a brilliant salesman. He doesn't need embellishing fictionalized statements to make his pipes more interesting.

 

[Briar Lee]

I might have a hundred of these, only two that are marked Algerian Briar



All Algerian briar of Marxman, Bertram, and other high end grades will always color deep red.

But Cowan must have developed some process at Marxman to where even 70 years later if you clean one then on the first smoke the oil leeches back out to color the pipe

 

[Briar Lee]

In all seriousness, for the Pipesmagazine historical record, everything listed in the above quote is pure conjecture and made up.

You really need to preference your comments with bullshit conjecture warnings so that future readers are aware that you are engaging in some fiction.

Robert Marx was a brilliant salesman. He doesn't need embellishing fictionalized statements to make his pipes more interesting.

The proof is in the pipes.

400s don’t do that.

Lots of early pipes don’t do that.

Bob Marx was a terrible pipe maker himself.



And since Cowan kept the rights to make Marxman hand made pipes until he died, according to his granddaughter, if had to be Cowan.

How, did he do it?

Is the real question

And we also can see there are nice, hand made Benchmade and Jumbo pipes and then machine shaped ones with lots of fills.

A good Scottish lad would have been named Robert Louis Cowan.

That is a specially commissioned stamp.

The maker struck it to the briar.




And lookie:
Top-Today’s project- oxblood one smoke
Cowan Hand Made- slowly turning
Machine made Jumbo - slowly turning
Slimline “C” Benchmade- hardly turning


This is what retired Bob and Helen in 1953

Unsmoked Korean War Era Marxman Jumbo


Three smokes



It was some process, to color a pipe.

Probably like the Coca Cola formula.

Try making a real Coke.

 

[Briar Lee]

Don’t be afraid to buy a caked up old blackened Marxman, if it’s a real one made in New York City or a hand made one by Cowan later.

The reason a Marxman cost $5-$25 was they were worth it.