That meer is colored so perfectly its indistinguishable from a briar. I always thought it was funny, as a primarily meer smoker myself, that the ultimate goal is to color a meer to look like a briar
@fishmansf - I'd say that's incidental: isn't the really ultimate goal of smoking a Meer, to enjoy the experience of a superlatively good smoke? And, if you wish, another, and another, immediately afterward? The coloration is surely simply an added bonus - that, and observing the process as it goes on (will it be marbled, or mottled - or striated? Or will it do all these?) Most briars, I understand, are stained, and this Meer - which I suspect is a Laxey pipe made for Barling - has had, like a lot of African Meers, a certain amount of pre-colouring. The one thing I've rarely seen in a Meer (in my admittedly very limited experience) is a grain effect. I wonder if the earliest briars were coloured to look like Meerschaums, though?