The Pipe That Pulled Me Back In

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PapaCoolDown

Might Stick Around
Nov 19, 2024
53
357
Minneapolis, MN
This claw is the catalyst to reinvigorating my enjoyment of pipes and pipe smoking after a 22 year break.
A year ago I attended the Peaks and Pours bourbon festival in Colorado Springs. After several hours of sampling some amazing whiskey’s I found myself with a whiskey in one hand and a cigar in the other, perusing pipes at the meerschaum booth. Never having delved deep enough into pipe smoking in my youth, I wasn’t familiar with meerschaum pipes. While the consummate salesman behind the tables extolled the virtues of meerschaum, this claw caught my eye. Immediately it had to be mine and I left that day with a new pipe, a couple cigars, and several bottles of bourbon.
Upon waking up the next morning, with a slight headache, I saw the amazing claw I now possessed. With the claw was the receipt showing the horror of what I paid for my first new pipe in over two decades. I may have crumpled and destroyed that tattletale piece of paper before my wife could see the depth of my inebriated free spending.
Since that purchase, I have succumbed to the disease of collecting pipes and tins of tobacco. As part of my collection I have this gorgeous, massive claw pipe that I have yet to put tobac in. I am tempted but the bowl is .8” wide and 2.25” deep. I don’t have eight hours straight to smoke a full bowl. If the power goes out this winter maybe I will fill it up and use it as a furnace to heat the house. The family huddled around me, hands held close to the bowl, while I puff away. IMG_3850.jpegIMG_3851.jpegIMG_3852.jpegIMG_3860.jpeg
 

LeafErikson

Lifer
Dec 7, 2021
2,198
19,234
Oregon
That claw is gorgeous but yeah the chamber depth precludes the pipe from daily use IMO as well. If the chamber width was exactly the same but the depth was about half of that it’d be a perfect daily smoker for my money.
 

jpmcwjr

Lifer
May 12, 2015
26,273
30,298
Carmel Valley, CA
If you wanted to keep a record of its coloring (and weight):

Take a photo with the back of a business card in the capture. Try to photo in the same circumstances each time- the white card will help adjust if needed. Weigh it now, and periodically - say every quarter or so.

Lovely!
 
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PapaCoolDown

Might Stick Around
Nov 19, 2024
53
357
Minneapolis, MN
If you wanted to keep a record of its coloring (and weight):

Take a photo with the back of a business card in the capture. Try to photo in the same circumstances each time- the white card will help adjust if needed. Weigh it now, and periodically - say every quarter or so.

Lovely!
I will have to try that. Maybe a progression shot after every smoke. Then put them together into a video. I like it. 👍
 

LOREN

Part of the Furniture Now
Oct 21, 2019
619
1,050
66
Illinois -> Florida
That claw is gorgeous but yeah the chamber depth precludes the pipe from daily use IMO as well. If the chamber width was exactly the same but the depth was about half of that it’d be a perfect daily smoker for my money.
Can you use meerschaum chips to make the bowl shallower or would that just make a mess to clean up?
 
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Chasing Embers

Captain of the Black Frigate
Nov 12, 2014
44,987
117,728
Can you use meerschaum chips to make the bowl less deep or would that just make a mess to clean up?
Those can score up the chamber. The in chamber pipe filters are safer on meerschaum.

IMG_3203__63155.jpg

Another option is just partially filling the pipe.
 
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