MM Quality Expectations
- Thread starter Akoni808
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I’d put the bent stem on the off center cob so I could secretly smoke around the corner.
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Lol they must be out of their damn minds. My stem is a tad I’ll fitting on one of mine and it annoys me. Both of yours would be returned if I had them sent to me. It sucks seeing heritage brands go to pot.
This concerns me if those pipes weren’t scalped from the reject dumpster outside of MM.
I’ve visited MM several times. The workers all know each other and most are family.
For their standard pipes there are five components, the cob, the shank, a metal ring, and the stem, and a filter.
The stems and the rings and filters are purchased from third party vendors. Only the cob and shank are manufactured in the factory.
Each pipe is made using hand labor from cobs that start at the West end and progress station to station to where old women pack them on the East.
Those old women I saw would have skinned their brothers, sons, grandsons, or husbands who would have not chucked the bad stem and badly drilled cob at the station and instead made pipes from them.
Each worker is responsible for their own quality control. Their grandma is on the East end packaging their work.
MM has a reject barrel those old women sometimes (not often) toss a pipe.
You can’t see what’s wrong with it, but they can. Those are sold to visitors to show off quality control. I’ve never seen a half dozen for sale, as seconds.
Did Covid and high wages elsewhere strike Missouri Meerschaum too?
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If any of my MMs were off center, you’d need a micrometer to tell (or at least eyes better trained than mine!). I’ve never seen anything remotely close to this, and while I’m not buying them in bulk, I must have purchased a dozen or so over the last half-decade.
I would definitely reach out about it, not just to get a refund, but to let them know there’s something going on with QC if this is what’s being sent out. I don’t expect perfection by any means, but that’s wildly off.
I would definitely reach out about it, not just to get a refund, but to let them know there’s something going on with QC if this is what’s being sent out. I don’t expect perfection by any means, but that’s wildly off.
I know for certain that these didn’t come from a reject barrel, but the vender did make it right.
I have bought more than a dozen too, and have never had any issues. Besides once with an acrylic MM, that was pretty off.
The vender did make it right though.
The bottom floor of Missouri Meerschaum is devoted to an incredibly interesting museum, on the North side.
The product is shipped from docks on the South side.
Production is on the second floor, and it’s not an assembly line. There are a series of century or more old machines where the cobs are taken down from the top floors where they’ve aged and there’s a bin where the cobs are sorted and then passed to stations. A worker saws the cob into sections, and then walks up a box full of sawed cobs East to other stations, where they are puttied, shaped, bored and drilled and only at the last stations are the bowls fitted with a wooden stem. Only then do the old women add the ring, filter and stem and hold it up and inspect it, then it’s packaged.
They make a lot of pipes, one at a time.
Maybe the Corona wiped out the grandmas.
I can’t imagine the ones I saw packaging either pipe.
By the way the ones you want are specials and freehands.
There’s a station on the far South West corner where one gray haired craftsman makes all of those, then walks a box up to the old women.
When you watch them make the pipes nobody seems in a hurry. They also seem to enjoy doing it.
The product is shipped from docks on the South side.
Production is on the second floor, and it’s not an assembly line. There are a series of century or more old machines where the cobs are taken down from the top floors where they’ve aged and there’s a bin where the cobs are sorted and then passed to stations. A worker saws the cob into sections, and then walks up a box full of sawed cobs East to other stations, where they are puttied, shaped, bored and drilled and only at the last stations are the bowls fitted with a wooden stem. Only then do the old women add the ring, filter and stem and hold it up and inspect it, then it’s packaged.
They make a lot of pipes, one at a time.
Maybe the Corona wiped out the grandmas.
I can’t imagine the ones I saw packaging either pipe.
By the way the ones you want are specials and freehands.
There’s a station on the far South West corner where one gray haired craftsman makes all of those, then walks a box up to the old women.
When you watch them make the pipes nobody seems in a hurry. They also seem to enjoy doing it.
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They look interesting, but I won't smoke them. I won't contact MM. I'll call up the vender who sold me those pipes and have a talk with them with loud volume. Sure, MM made them, but who sold me the pipe and kept my money and the shipping fee? They better sell me something that looks like a decent pipe even at $6.
Their $40 range products have the same QC. Earlier this year, I received an MM Honeypot with an unlevel shank and a blocked draft hole. After some manual work, I am still satisfied with its smoking quality and appearance. But please imagine a briar pipe produced by Rossi or Morgan bones in the same price range.
I would have let MM know. Not necessarily ripped them a new one, Friday afternoons and Monday mornings happen to us all. But it's a rare company that doesn't want to know what is end users are thinking.