Help! What on earth did I just buy?

[S.A. DeVault]

So, this Saturday afternoon, my wife and I are going through a couple antique stores, which we do monthly or so. As I’m looking through a stack of books, my wife says “I’ve found a weird pipe, want to see it?”. Of course I answer in the affirmative, and she shows me what I’ve attached below. I see it and think to myself “Meerschaum!”, then I think to myself, there’s not a shot that a real meerschaum pipe would be priced at 15 dollars. I buy it up anyway, just in case, and thought I would have the better minds on here help me.

Real Meerschaum?
Composite Meerschaum?
Garbage?
Can I do anything about this stuck piece (in one of the photos)?
You tell me, I know next to nothing about meerschaum.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Real Meerschaum?

Looks like it. You don't have to spend a fortune for the real thing

Can I do anything about this stuck piece (in one of the photos)?

Yep, replace the set.

 

[RustiePyles CPG]

Pretty standard Turkish meer, as @Chasing Embers says, replace the whole tenon.

 

[username]

Nice score.

 

[S.A. DeVault]

Looks like it. You don't have to spend a fortune for the real thing



Yep, replace the set.

View attachment 241046

Wow, what luck! Now I have to learn how to replace it without ruining it. To searching the forums I go! Also, I tried drawing on it (please no one judge me) a bit of a hard draw, maybe from the stuck piece, but also a tiny bit ghosted, is there a different protocol for helping a ghosted meerschaum?

 

[Chasing Embers]

Now I have to learn how to replace it without ruining it.

They just unscrew. You may have to use pliers on the tenon but always replace them as a set.

Standard Universal Meerschaum Pipe Fittings 3 Tenon - Mortise Set

Universal Meerschaum Pipe Fitting brought to you from Meerschaummarket.com. One of the most wonderful pipe fittings at meerschaummarket.com.

www.meerschaummarket.com

is there a different protocol for helping a ghosted meerschaum?

Best to just smoke them out.

 

[S.A. DeVault]

They just unscrew. You may have to use pliers on the tenon but always replace them as a set.

Standard Universal Meerschaum Pipe Fittings 3 Tenon - Mortise Set

Universal Meerschaum Pipe Fitting brought to you from Meerschaummarket.com. One of the most wonderful pipe fittings at meerschaummarket.com.

www.meerschaummarket.com

Best to just smoke them out.

Thank you, all of you for your knowledge and help! I owe my wife some present, what a nice find!

 

[sardonicus87]

And for what it's worth, if a pipe is cheap at an antique store, that doesn't mean it's necessarily garbage. Lots of antique places don't know much about pipes, so if they're unwilling to look something up, or don't know what they're looking at (like a meer that has no branding they can just search for or even that they might not know what meerschaum even is to know to look for that much), they might stick a low value on it. Lots of people don't know anything about pipes. My wife didn't even know that pipe cleaners originated for cleaning tobacco pipes until a month ago after I been smoking again for the last year, and she's 48... 21 this year.

There's several antique stores here. I've been to a few of them on a rare occasion and never once saw a pipe or anything pipe-related in any of them. It's been many years, I might go look again. Most of the stuff in most of them though is at most 10-year old junk cheap furniture bored-house wives picked up off the side of the road and sponge-painted with pastel colors to flip... the ones here is like 5% actual antiques and 95% re-painted literal trash... like if you ever saw a Pinterest board of "ideas for what to do with wood pallets" or "how to repurpose trash as garden art", that's what these "antique" stores are filled with.

 

[ssjones]

My experience with pipes sold at antique/junk stores around MD/VA/PA is that now every vendor has a phone, and googles tobacco pipes and prices the items very high.

Here, in particular, cheap carved meerschaum pipes are always priced very high. And they remain in the cabinets for a long time.

Pretty cool @ChasingEmbers - I didn't know it was that easy to replace a tenon set!

 

[pappymac]

Even though you never see a pipe on American Pickers and Antique Roadshow, the people who owns the small antique shops or booths in the antique malls watches those shows and will price things accordingly. They also check websites for estate pipes to see what similar pipes are selling for.

 

[bluegrassbrian]

My experience with pipes sold at antique/junk stores around MD/VA/PA is that now every vendor has a phone, and googles tobacco pipes and prices the items very high.

Here, in particular, cheap carved meerschaum pipes are always priced very high. And they remain in the cabinets for a long time.

Pretty cool @ChasingEmbers - I didn't know it was that easy to replace a tenon set!

Yeah I've seen way too many old Meers in glass cases, priced way too high.
More than once I've noticed a tag that reads "ivory pipe".

 

[jonasclark]

Absolutely an 80s-or-newer small Turkish meer, almost certainly block. Even this basic grade had the case made just to fit that one pipe.