In my opinion, as a lover of meerschaums who believes that some very good carvings come out of Turkey today, that isn't great, but if you like it, you like it. It has a lattice carving, but it's fake, no surface carved out behind. There are lots of what I call false lattices, wherein a little 'edge' is carved inside each hole. This doesn't have that, it's just dimples. The carving isn't great, dimple pattern isn't very even. It's a small pipe, but I think the price is okay for a pipe that size. Look at the 3rd photo in the auction, there's some grime on the pipe between the front & side claws.
My questions: What is your budget? Do you like claws especially, or any other specific subject matter (faces, specifically or generally, carved patterns like florals and lattices, smooths, etc.)?
I collect Bekler's pipes, especially his abstracts. Prices can vary widely, really. I've bought a Bekler for $45, and I've seen Beklers sell for the high hundreds. He carved abstracts, lots of faces and figures (including some very,
very strange designs), and in his later years, stuck mostly to smooth shapes with intricate bas-relief floral and geometric patterns (look at smokingpipes.com's CAO page under new pipes to see some new-old-stock examples of his later work, including a few with figural sections). If you're near Portland, OR or Chicago, you can go look at Bekler's later work for sale at Rich's Cigars or Iwan Ries, respectively; Rich's has well over a hundred in stock, around 30 on display at any time, and I think charges in the $200-300 range for them. I haven't been to Iwan Ries (they're reputed to have around 15,000 pipes in stock!) but Rich's has a few hundred pipes on display, including a lot of meerschaums.
If you tell me what sorts of designs you like and what your budget is, I can PM you some pipes on eBay which I think are nice.
Edit: Here's an example of Bekler's abstract work. This is circa 1971-73, carved for his first US importer, Irving Korn and Royal Meerschaum. This went for a bit over $150 on eBay.
