Meerschaum Fans... Talk To me.

[apatim]

I need as muc info on meerschaums. As you can provide.
Granted, I am a newbie but have taken to pipe smoking relatively quickly. Packing, cadence, etc are pretty much second nature to me now after a few months of smoking. I've bought a couple of grand worth of pipes and tobaccos and love 'me all for the most part.
That said, I've just started smoking a new meerschaum and am blown away! The tobacco flavors are coming through like none other!
I loved Latakia in the briars but OMG - Latakia is forsaking amazing in the meer!
So, teach me... What all do I need to know about meers?
I know they don't need resting like meers and cleaning is a different and simpler procedure but...
Do they ghost flavors? What all do I need to know as I move forward with meers?

 

[saint007]

Keep your powder dry and one eye open :wink:

 

[saint007]

sorry, duplicate post.
The Frogs and many other blends do taste sweeter in a meerschaum.
I have 6 and that is plenty right now. I find myself smoking them one to one with my briars and I have 40 of those.

 

[voorhees]

You spent a couple of grand and just bought a meer? Uh oh. I hope your bank account is ready! Seriously, meers have their own charm and appeal. I bought my first about 1.5 yrs ago and I love it. I now have 5. As far as care, I pretty much treat them just like my briars. They don't need a lot of rest and I smoke all my blends in them as my other pipes.

 

[apatim]

Saint, I'm not familiar with the idiom " one eye open and powder dry"... What does that mean?
Vorhees, yeah I kinda go full blown when il like something. lOL

 

[andrew]

Wipe out the bowl after every smoke with tissue, you don't want cake to build up. As far as I know they don't ghost, but all I've smoked in mine are english and va's, never aro's. You don't want to use alcohol when cleaning them. Depending on how nice it is to you some people will hold it with a cloth so your fingerprints won't discolor it when smoking it. I find they have a great cool sweet kind of flavor.

 

[saint007]

"Saint, I'm not familiar with the idiom " one eye open and powder dry"... What does that mean?"
Just an old expression of mine. When I taught my son & daughter to shoot, I use to tell them that. They would look up at me and say, "huh"? :wink:
Watching your pipe turn brown is addicting. For me, smoking one is more of a ritual than smoking a briar. I'll usually light one up when I'm kicking back unlike my briars that I smoke when I'm more active. I also generally smoke aros in my meers and non-aros in my briars, though I will on occasion smoke a non-aro in them. Yet, I never smoke an aro in my briars. Quirky, I know.

 

[monty55]

Tim, I'm so glad you posted this. I was about to do the same. I too only just started a few months ago, I too have invested several grand in tobacco and briars.. and.. I too have just started down the meers path. Oh boy! First off, I just hope PAD doesn't get the better of me lol. I thought I was calming down after 25 choice briars. Then I started looking at meers. All of a sudden I'm buying again, and again. My first is on it's way in the mail and I'm really excited. I've done so much reading. I can't wait to smoke a creamy sweet bowl of Lat in it!
Let's keep in touch as we merrily skip down this path of the white goddess ::
Cheers!

 

[pipejunky]

You can definitely ghost a meerschaum but with a good cleaning and a rest you can overcome whatever blend you smoked a lot to get it to that point. Wax your pipe if you want color but the smoking characteristics are more important to me. Don't look to build cake at all cause to don't need it. I Everclear my stems and with a strip of paper towel wipe out the bowl after every smoke I have 7 meers with which two of them are of the black version but are all block meerschaum and that i like a lot and smoke differently which I account to the size and shape. Having many pipes and trying to keep track as to what you smoke in them can get confusing. some times i find myself drawing on them to recollect what I have puffed in them before. Take it slow happy puffin!

 

[kendodan]

I too have a Meer coming the end of this month and I am very excited to get it! I don't plan on using beeswax or holding it with a cloth or anything. To me it's just too much work. Do you have a pic of yours Apatim? Here is the one I am getting http://rattrays-pipes.com/en/pipes/details/23344/white-goddess-billiard-carved/

 

[saint007]

Nothing fancy, just some basics.

 

[ravenwolf]

I love my meerschaum, and find it different than smoking a briar. Tobacco blends taste different in it - similiar, but small differences, and I find it fascinating. I also agree that watching it color with time and use is incredibly addicting. I have seen some color without doing the melt wax treatments - maybe sometime I will try it.
I've had several meerschaums, but my best by far is my Baki. They are expensive, but worth it - unlike more affordable briar pipes, the more affordable meerschaums seem to be plagued by major problems (weird mortise/tennon connection methods, drilling being horribly off, drilling being extremely tight to the point of a pipe cleaner not fitting at all, quality of materials being low.) So I would say to keep an eye out for a modern produced meerschaum that uses top grade materials and craftsmanship - it seems to be kind of a black and white situation with very little grey (normal quality and smoking friendly meerschaums.) There are several modern meerschaum carvers that do good work.
It's good to avoid cake in a meerschaum. Wiping out the bowl with a doubled over pipe cleaner or a paper towel does help. I smoke mostly aromatics in mine, and if there is very little or no cake build up, the flavoring doesn't effect other things I smoke like virginia flakes.
I'd also be especially careful with a meerschaum pipe. Dropping it has a bigger chance of serious damage than dropping a briar. I have heard stories of somebody walking out of their comfortably warm house into a cold winter morning and the meerschaum in their mouth cracking from the extreme temperature fluctuation. Running a pipe cleaner through the bowl after a smoke requires some care - the end of the pipe cleaner can gauge the bottom of the pipe around the draught hole in the heel of the pipe if you are rough. These are things I havn't had the courage to test myself, just passing along what I have been told.

 

[apatim]

Geez... I just read what I posted from my iPad after a little too much brandy. Lots of typos! ...oh well. ;-)
monty: it sounds like we are traveling a similar path with our new hobby. I hope you're enjoying it as much as I.
kendodan: pics of my meer are HERE I plan to purchase a few more - really like the one you are getting! I have my eye on several... some simple and some a bit more ornate.
saint: all of yours look great. I particularly like the one on bottom with the claw. I prefer the claw in that position like it is grabbing onto the bowl rather than cradling it.
I'm amazed at the difference in flavor that the meer provides - it seems more pure or something??? I guess it doesn't impart any flavor so you're just tasting the tobacco. Is that correct?
Always something new to learn with this great hobby!

 

[topd]

I love my briers and cobs but meerschaums hold a special place in my heart. I've been smoking and collecting them since '75. As ravenwolf said, Fikri Baki is most likely one of the best masters making pipes today, and you can only get them through Deniz Ural's website. But there are plenty of other master carvers out there and many of the eBay on-line stores are trustworthy and ship quickly. Look for names like the Emin Brothers, or just Emin. Tekim and Sevket are other names worth a second look and there are plenty of others. You can also find many really fine pipes made by carvers that haven't gotten their masters status.

When I first started buying pipes, I could hold them in my hands and examine them closely, but with the U.S. B&M's becoming so rare, I now do my buying on-line. Be sure to look at all the photo's and ask for more if need be. Look closely at the dimensions and weight of the pipe (convert them to the units of measure you use). Rule of thumb: $200 will get you a really nice pipe, $35 will get you a piece of crap you'll be disappointed in.

On ghosting, I don't smoke aero's so I've never dedicated pipes, but they will. Meerschaum is very porous and will absorb whatever touches it. Don't soak them in alcohol, but pipe cleaners dipped in Everclear are OK. I smoke my pipes over and over, then put them aside for a rest when it starts to feel heavier than it was. Give them several days to dry. The drying time also allows the bees wax to draw the tars toward the surface. That's the job of the wax, that's what it does.

Some folks don't worry about the coloring, but I enjoy the transformation my pipes take on over time. I don't wear gloves or hold them with rags but you do want to make sure your hands are clean. They will absorb oils or grease from the outside also so clean hands are a must. Don't set them down in an ashtray, only in the case that was made for the pipe. (I have a little stand I made that is lined with soft flannel near my chair). I'm glad to see more folks getting excited about meerschaums.... Enjoy your pipes!
The photo's are from a Sevket I bought on-line about four years ago. The first photo is after smoking for about a year and the second is what it looks like now.

 

[cynyr]

Top, I was looking this up while you were posting!
TopD's Meers

 

[condorlover1]

I think I have posted many pictures of some of my meerschaum collection. I don't smoke anything else but meerschaum. I own one briar which I have had for thirty odd years but everything else is meerschaum. I think meerschaum pipes provide the coolest smoke available and their absorbent qualities are unrivaled.

 

[gregprince]

Yes, be cautious with pipe cleaners, no alcohol in bowl and clean hands. Also I find that Ravenwood is correct concerning quality. There is a lot of junk out there.

 

[rmbittner]

You may be interested in a thread I started a couple of months ago: http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/dont-fear-the-meer.
Basically, I was saying that I decided I wasn't going to baby my meerschaum and treat it like it was "special" -- adding wax, wearing gloves, not touching the bowl, etc. I was going to smoke it and enjoy it and that was that. That shift in mindset transformed how I feel about my (one) meerschaum now. And it's an approach I highly recommend.
Bob

 

[condorlover1]

@rmbittner - 100% right!

 

[apatim]

Thanks, Bob. I now remember that thread - I had even posted in it but I guess without having a meer to use at the time, much of the information kinda got lost in my feeble mind. ;-) Now, the things you said in it make so much more sense to me.