Those of you following my tweets are probably wondering why I haven’t just put three dollars on the counter at Walgreens and picked up some tobacco already. If I was breaking in a briar or corncob pipe, I would have done so, and probably would be on the second container. But after not smoking a pipe for seven years, I wanted my return to tobacco to be the pipe I’ve always wanted. A churchwarden. [1]
And when I did pick up my churchwarden earlier this week, I didn’t get just any pipe. None of the briar churchwardens in the case appealed to me. So I blew my budget. I bought a meerschaum churchwarden.
I may be more than a little pleased at the purchase. Okay, okay. Don’t look at me that way. ~laughs~ Yes, I’m smug as fuck and pleased as an orgasm at the purchase. I think I spent the rest of the day thinking of all the places I could smoke this delight.
The first thing I did was make sure my hands were clean. The second thing I did was to manhandle the meerschaum bowl. In the distance, I heard the screams and cries of meerschaum fanatics as they felt my heretical touch. You’re not supposed to touch the meerschaum, especially when the bowl is hot. Excessive (or wrongful) handling can remove the coating of beeswax from the exterior, ruining how the bowl colors over time. As a meerschaum pipe is smoked, the mineral slowly changes color from white/cream to pinkish to yellows and deep amber browns. Look up images of carved meerschaum pipes. The coloring combined with expert carving skills produces beautiful works of art.
This plain bowl, however, wasn’t purchased to be one of those. It was purchased to help me kill the random hour or two. That the shape appealing most to me was carved from meerschaum was more happenstance than deliberation. I do look forward to the pipe’s coloring. But it will be a process that takes years, if not decades. I doubt I will smoke it more than twice a week.
After I told my friend of how I came across this little delight, he repeated my story back to me, and added, “The pipe is so unremarkable, those wanting an elaborate mantelpiece meerschaum overlooked it. That’s because it was waiting for you.”
Trying to figure out if he was trying to fluff my ego, or if that was a backhanded compliment about my tastes.
The bowl has a fruity scent. Almost candy like. It is certainly light enough in weight to be confused with a candy confection. I think the stem by itself weighs more than the bowl! Over time, as the bowl absorbs tar and smoke from the tobacco, it will become heavier and heavier. But for now, it is so light, I feel as if I have nothing in my hand.
Eager to smoke it, but attendant to my budget, I am supposed to be waiting until next week to purchase tobacco. (I keep a strict budget.) But I really, really, want to be lazy with this delight right now. When I told my friend (jokingly) that I would get a pouch of cheap drugstore Carter Hall, he was vehemently against it.
“I would rather eat a lb each of cabbage & lettuce, digest it, shit it out, bury it in peat for 3 months, dry the remains, shred and smoke that, before I did Carters. But that’s just me.”
I’m not quite sure I have his opinion. I may ask him again later.
I provide these measurements because so many pipe forums like to whip out the tape. It fits in my hand, therefore it is the perfect size for me. All else is bragging.
Length: 9.5″ (measured straight)
Bowl material: block meerschaum
Bowl outside height: 1 7/8″
Bowl outside width: 1 1/8″ (at widest point)
Bowl + shank length: 2″
Bowl inside height: 1 1/2″
Bowl inside width: 3/4″
Stem material: Lucite
Stem length: 7 5/8″ (measured straight)
Weight: (to be updated)
Maker: SMS Pipes
Purchased at: David’s Gifts & Tobacco
[1] Not a Lord of the Rings pipe, not a Harry Potter pipe, a CHURCHWARDEN.