I vaguely remember something about that now. I can't keep up with all this stuff on here. If you're going to start adopting his love for cake you'll need even bigger chambers.
My First IMP Meerschaum
- Thread starter hawky454
- Start date
That’s interesting, I may chill out on the pipe cleaners too, I have a Gamboni that I was pushing the cleaner in too far and it started damaging the inner bottom of the chamber by poking the side of the wall too many times. I definitely don’t want to do this with a meer. It makes sense that more of the oils will be absorbed if you don’t wipe them away with a pipe cleaner.
But why would they think that keeping them clean, would make it color faster? It makes no sense in my mind.
Perfect thread for me to catch up on now! Very interesting discussion. I may try the cake method as well.
So are those old meerschaum cutty’s that @condorlover1 has stained with oxblood or is that natural? I always assumed that those were lovely natural colors from years and years of smoking. I would kind of be disappointed if those were pre-colored. Those deep dark purple patinas on some of those pipes are what triggered the itch to buy a meerschaum of my own, in hopes to one day smoke enough to achieve such beautiful colors and yeah, to me that is worth bragging about as it’s just cool, especially if you can get there from a brand new white meerschaum.
Agreed… let that meerschaum do all the work, suck up all the juices. The more the better!
Good question. Some old meers definitely look like oxblood. Some it's hard to say whether there was any precoloring...but if any of those deeply colored ones started out white, they must have been the only pipe the owner had, and he smoked them every day, all day long...for many, many years.
I didn't jump into that ring, but I'm in for the first 100 smokes with the owl. I should have that knocked out in about threw weeks so we'll go from there.
You never seem to see a new meer that looks like that anymore...the closest I've seen are those red IMP's.
If my Ali pirate skull is any indication, the entire pipe was colored like that and the heat of smoking them lightened the color of the upper bowl.
Oh really...I was thinking it was just the standard wax color you normally see like with Yanik's pipes...but I do remember now it looked a bit darker than those...but I don't normally ever seem to see anything new that really looks like those old oxblood pipes.
Wow, yeah that is darker than I thought it was. I also didn't realize it had that owl on the back...I don't remember seeing that before. That really adds to the impressiveness of the carving.
That's not the skull but an example of the dark wax. Here's the stock photo of the Ali.
In answer to your question some are and some are not. The very dark brown/aubergine color on some of my pipes going down the shank and around the foot is a result of me smoking them and using the 'coin' or 'button' trick. In time the color will keep going and sort of level off at the point were the coin or button is seated in the chamber. I never seem to achieve that level of color you see in some of the Victorian/Edwardian pipes and those I think are the result of Ox Blood. If you look at the group of pipes below you can see a good selection that have colored through myself and their previous owner smoking the pipe. The exceptions are the two unsmoked meerschaum pipes, one from the 1870s and the other from the turn of the century both of which I purchased a long time ago and which I have no intention of ever smoking due to the rarity. Looking at the pipes you can see the aubergine color on the stems. This is the effect of smoking damp twist and fresh-ish plug since being a 'wet' smoker the moisture and 'crap' is soaked up by the pipe but YMMV. If you examine the monthly rotation picture you can see a few Ox Blood pipes including a very rare Le Cune from Paris circa 1890 which is in my humble opinion the height of the Ox Blood-era art. I have published the monthly rotation picture before but if anyone wants it for comparison purposes I will happily dig it out. Thank you for your interest!
You’re going on the assumption that the goal is to get the Meerschaum to colour faster—one could contend that the goal might be to keep the pipes clean for purer taste, and that colouring is just a by-product and possibly unwanted quality of the inability to do so.
I imagine there must’ve been smokers that wanted clean white pipes that offered pure taste and stayed white, and that people just smoked (without a thought of developing colour as a goal).
There’s a part of me that wouldn’t mind if my Meerschaum pipes stayed white. But, through use, it does happen to colour, even with regular cleaning—they’re porous and it’s bound to happen.
You're gonna have to give in and smoke that one eventually.
I'm not going to lie. This makes me a little sad. The carving would color nicely...