>>1042820>isnt that pressed meerschaum?Nope. Block.
"Made in Turkey" on the side and everything.
Just for people reading along, the easy way to tell if a pipe's made of either block or pressed meer is with a few small droplets of water on the outside of the pipe.
Block meer is porous, so the water will soak into the body of the pipe. Pressed meer isn't (there's epoxy binder holding the meet dust together), so the water will either run off or just sit there.
>>1042827>pre WW1 pipes are kicking about stillDon't I know it. I've got a few, and still smoke them. I even made a new mouthpiece for one of them (pic related) a couple threads back.
They're generally smaller in size but just as functional as modern designs. And sometimes even more so, because the army mount pipes popular in the WWI era were designed to be taken apart while still hot and stowed disassembled in a pocket. Try that with a regular pipe and you're going to get a cracked stem (ask me how I know...)
Don't be afraid to use your pipes while /out/ guys. They're not fragile bits of priceless glass. They're tools, and durable. And like all tools their value comes from their utility.
Meerschaum is weatherproof and won't warp or deform in high humidity environments. Briar is nearly fireproof and very abrasion resistant. Corncobs are light and very tolerant of abuse-if one goes swimming, just set it out in the sun to dry, no harm done. All are more durable than cigars or cigarettes, yet still light and don't take up much space.
The chipped and dirty $7 cob you take everywhere with you and smoke all of the time is a much more integral part of your life than a pristine, $600 custom carved meerschaum that sits on your shelf just looking like it belongs in a museum.
