Picked up a pipe with white residue inside the bowl. Anyone see this before?

[dbcooper]

Picked up a Viparti 1 clover off the eBay for a pretty good deal. Of course buying estate pipes off of eBay you're never going to see what you get, well most of the time so anyway, and I'm well aware of that.
I'm not an expert but I have seen and handled plenty of pipes but this is new to me in person at least. I suspect it leftover caranubra wax or other type of compound but there should be no reason for the bowl to be waxed...
Anyhow see picture. Your thoughts or opinions on what this is and whether it's harmful to the pipe or not will be very appreciated.
Also trying to figure out what was done to the rim of this pipe. if you notice the rim is not nearly close to a circle and the unevenness of the black on the rim. The side view shows remnants of the Brown top finish at some points along the rim, so when this pipe was new it had the complete brown over black finish that matches the rest of the pipe. I just don't know how the hell the Brown finish was removed.. so ideas on that are appreciated as well.
Thank you very much.

 

[dbcooper]

Oh I forgot to say sorry if this is the wrong section please point me to where I should post this if it is. Thank you

 

[peckinpahhombre]

Roll up a dollar bill and snort it and see if you feel lightheaded.

 

[dbcooper]

K will report back.

 

[saltedplug]

gentle reaming?

 

[dbcooper]

Well I'm light-headed but I think that's cuz I was snorting so hard... None of the white residue came up off of it.
Maybe I should try scraping off the white residue and turning it into a Freebase then smoking it. Think that would work better? Thanks for all your help!
Saltedplug: A gentle reaming will remove.. I took a dentist tool and very lightly used the side of it to rub it and it came off straight away. I'm more concerned about something not meant for human consumption being absorbed into the Briar. The bowl is the last place you want to have remnants of something chemical that's possibly toxic.. besides the tobacco that is.
I'm probably being overly cautious but with non-established eBay sellers, you can never be too cautious in my opinion.

 

[sablebrush52]

Probably just ricin, nothing to worry about. Smoke a few bowls to remove it.

 

[mso489]

A little clean-up will make it perfect. Be very conservative/gentle with reaming; you can ruin a pipe fast with heavy-handed reaming. I recently cleaned out the stummel of my first Meer running water through it (as recommended on Forums or I wouldn't have done it, no soaking, just steady from the tap). About five or six paper towel swabs took it from loads of cake to a clean towel. Water's okay on briar too, is used in carving and finishing. I really like briar Calabash. BC makes a nice one, but I think this may be up market from that. Handsome pipe. Spend some elbow grease and enjoy for years and years to come. What's the brand and origin?

 

[dbcooper]

Not the right color or odor for ricin.

 

[alan73]

Yes, seen on many a new pipe bowl coats. Warm to hot water, insert finger twist,repeat several times . Rub it out. No need to ream.

 

[dbcooper]

Hi mso489, thanks for the reply.
Origin is eBay, seller is no one known in the community and doesn't know pipes.
It's a Luigi Viprati 1 clover. It's a rather good-looking pipe besides for some of the flaws in the Finish on the rim. The grain is really great looking, I can't imagine why it was covered up with two colors of dark finish.
Not an expert in Viprati's but looks like an older pipe as the made in Italy is on the shank stem rather than the side. I could be completely wrong about this being any indicator of when it was produced.
I was planning to give it a salt/alcohol bath as I do with most estate pipes for sanitwtion as well as 'resetimg' the pipe. But before I did I wanted to see if anyone had seen something like this before and give a good guess so to the source. So fat ricin and something I'm supposed to snort are on the table.

 

[btp79]

Maybe they tried a salt treatment? I've done a few that sometimes look like that. Just ream it out thoroughly and fill it with some high proof alcohol to make sure it's disinfected. That, or it's some serious ghosting :lol:

 

[dbcooper]

I've done hundreds of salt / grain alcohol baths and never had any residue left over. But I use kosher salt, as is proper. Table salt is small enough it can get into small cracks/crevices and damage or destroy the bowl.
I think I'll just chance it being ricin and get on with the cleaning. Thanks to those trying to help!
"Some serious ghosting" - there has to be a joke in there about white residue in a pipe being an actual ghost.. because as we know ghosts are universally white like a bed sheet with two holes cut out for eyes.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Just flush it out a few times with very hot tap water and towel dry. Good to go in a few hours unless your climate is very humid.