My First "Made in Canada" Pipe

[tuold]

I've got Swiss made pipes, Italian, English, American, Russian and even a Japanese pipe, but this is my first Canadian pipe. It's a Briarmeer and has an odd cutout bowl with a meerschaum insert as you can see in the second picture. The pipe appears to not have been smoked often, which is probably not a good sign. These are the seller picks. It actually looks somewhat better in person and should clean up really nicely. I'll do that this weekend.
Does anybody else have a Briarmeer? If so, what do you think of them?

 

[purplemotoman]

Good job and welcome to Canada.

 

[teufelhund]

My Canadians are actually my favorites! I love my trypis pipes; I have a full rotation of them.

 

[peckinpahhombre]

I have never heard of this maker and would love to know some history. Congrats!

 

[tuold]

Steve, in a Reborn Pipes entry had done some pretty good detective work. Here is his entry:
Reborn Briarmeer
Mine is just about like new and will only require a ream and clean. Looking forward to firing it up this weekend!

 

[tuold]

Here she is cleaned up. Seems to be good quality briar and craftsmanship.

 

[tuold]

With the recent addition of my second Briarmeer pipe I'm officially a collector.

 

[mso489]

tuold, looks interesting. Very nice job on clean-up. What's the cork (?) plug in the base of the bowl about?

 

[tuold]

What looks like cork is actually a meerschaum plug. It's supposed to soak up the moisture from combustion.

 

[jvnshr]

What looks like cork is actually a meerschaum plug. It's supposed to soak up the moisture from combustion.

Here we go, learned something new today.

 

[buroak]

What looks like cork is actually a meerschaum plug. It's supposed to soak up the moisture from combustion.

I have seen eBay listings for this brand, and I always assumed they had a full meerschaum liner. Thanks for the lesson! How do they smoke?

 

[tuold]

The bulldog smokes just fine. The other one has a tighter draw than I prefer because of the way the airway is drilled in the shank. It's at a pretty extreme angle and the tenon of the stem partially obscures the airway. I'm pretty sure I can fix that.
I have to say, moisture has never been a huge problem for me. And I think the sacrifices that had to be made in the design and line appeal of these pipes (particularly the bull dog) really isn't worth the intended benefit. In short, I think the meerschaum thing is pretty much just a gimmick. But these Briarmeers represent a long history of pipe makers in addressing the problem. The history is what interests me and the reason I collect pipes like this.
The briar quality seems to be good. Fit and finish is...well...maybe a little mediocre but not too bad. If I see another up for auction I imagine I'd go for it.
By the way, a company called Briacraft did take up the Briarmeer name sometime after the original company went out of business, so you may see some pipes with that name with a full meerschaum lining.