Meers don't seem particularly delicate, unless you drop one on a hard surface. While doing so with a briar is not a good thing, the stummel is likely to survive, but not so with a meer.
Meerschaum Pipe Issues- or Operator Error?
- Thread starter bmdfm
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I agree, but what happened? Mold? Staining?
I seldom case my meers unless traveling.
Sour pipe. Luckily it was easily fixed with vodka and a couple pipe cleaners. Didn’t use vodka on the meer at all, just the stem needed a good cleaning.
@warren - I am sure you have read/heard all the stories about the professional pipe coloring men from 19th century Paris whose sole job was to smoke and color meerschaum pipes and then deliver them to the end buyer. I assume they sat there wearing cotton gloves puffing away and were all distant relatives of our beloved Jim Inks! 
Strangely enough all the very old meerschaums I have come across don't seem to have greasy finger prints on the bowl. I suppose people held them by the stem or something like that back in the day and as the stem turned dark brown it hid any finger prints. All that been said you are 100% right about it not effecting the coloring of a pipe.
Strangely enough all the very old meerschaums I have come across don't seem to have greasy finger prints on the bowl. I suppose people held them by the stem or something like that back in the day and as the stem turned dark brown it hid any finger prints. All that been said you are 100% right about it not effecting the coloring of a pipe.
one of the other common pipes back in the day were clay. And clay is interesting because the smoke is super cool, but the bowl will give you actual sub serious burns if you touch it. So I think people would have probably just been used to holding a pipe by the stem. Just a hunch but it would make sense.@warren - I am sure you have read/heard all the stories about the professional pipe coloring men from 19th century Paris whose sole job was to smoke and color meerschaum pipes and then deliver them to the end buyer. I assume they sat there wearing cotton gloves puffing away and were all distant relatives of our beloved Jim Inks!
Strangely enough all the very old meerschaums I have come across don't seem to have greasy finger prints on the bowl. I suppose people held them by the stem or something like that back in the day and as the stem turned dark brown it hid any finger prints. All that been said you are 100% right about it not effecting the coloring of a pipe.
I think your deduction is perfectly logical - holding the stem after smoking a clay makes perfect sense.
I'm down to 7 meers in my collection and the six that I regularly smoke are never put into cases unless I decide to take one on a road trip (the 7th is a very large meerschaum carved to look like a lighthouse on a rocky cliff and weighs over 20 grams.) I always make sure to run a pipe cleaner through the stem after smoking and wipe the bowl out with a tissue.
Yeah I always run a pipe cleaner through mine and the wipe the bowl out after smoking, but I must have forgotten to do it, or just didn't do a very good job.
The meer was sitting in its case for a week or two and I brought it out for a smoke, only to find the blend I was trying to enjoy was much more tangy/sour than usual. Then I noticed the draw was tangy/sour even after it was no longer lit. A vodka soaked pipe cleaner sorted the stem out and all was well again.
I have had that when I have a very old cased pipe that has been sitting around for 70 years + you sometimes get what I can only describe as 'damp meter cupboard or wet raincoat' smell. I find if you run a few bowls of something pungent through the pipe and leave it out of the case everything sorts itself out. I would be very cautious about vodka since older pipes have a well cured wax shell and I would be very careful about any form of solvent. That being said each to his own and modern pipes probably respond better to this type of stuff than the older ones.
Vodka never touched the meerschaum, I just ran the lightly soaked vodka pipe cleaner through the stem a few times, then ran a dry tapered pipe cleaner through for good measure
You used the vodka pipe cleaner on a modern meerschaum I assume? I heard of others doing this and I am sure its fine. I tend to keep solvents away from amber/redmanol stems and ancient meerschaums with exotically glued bone tenons. In the words of the Darwin Award book - what could possibly go wrong!
I have heard this before, but I just cannot get on board with the whole glove thing. I tried to smoke it by only holding the mouthpiece so as not to contaminate the meerschaum, but after almost dropping it by holding it in that way, I realized that it was getting to the point of being ridiculous. I just decided that if I am going to get any enjoyment out of it at all, I need to just treat it as a pipe and not get all hung up about it.
That being said, I smoke briar pipes when I am working in my wood shop and only smoke the meer in the house, with clean hands. If that makes the pipe color unevenly, so be it. If the pipe would color more rapidly, I may be more inclined to persevere with the extra care, but it sounds as if it can take a lifetime to fully color and I just won't find myself bothering to smoke it if I have to constantly handle it gingerly and spend all my time worrying about it. Just my own personal observation.
Unless you have sweaty hands or they're really dirty, you shouldn't have to wear gloves or hold the pipe by the stem.
Yes, unless you hold it in the same place each time, or for a long time, (which would probably cause sweating in the fingers and palm.)
I got my first meer in the mall yesterday, and during its first bowl (St. Bruno RR), I was shocked by how hot the bowl got. The smoke was normal in the mouth, but goddamn the bowl was so hot to the touch. This morning, I fired it up again with some 1792, and it's a lot cooler. Granted 1792 is a pretty cool smoke, but I'm guessing it maybe takes a while for the material to absorb stuff from the smoke and insulate itself?
That's what I'm hoping! I have had a few more bowls in my meer since my original post. The most recent was the same tobacco as before, but the bowl did not get as hot as it had previously. Don't know if that's because it is getting broken in more or because I am being more careful to smoke it cooler, or both; but either way, I did notice an improvement.
I then went and ordered a second meer.......an IMP. Probably won't end up with a whole collection of meers, but I think it's cool to have at least a couple in my pipe collection; although it's more a random mishmash of pipes I like than an actual "collection" per se. Anyway, maybe just one more meer............
One thing that may be happening: Moisture from the time of the carving—where they are soaked some time to soften the meerschaum — may still be present in the first few smokes. The heat will drive much of it out, and the walls will be less conductive, as they will with a bit of cake.