Pipe Materials

New York's most visible meerschaum pipe manufacturer in the 19th century. Its rise from a turner's workshop to a seven-story factory, the advertising language it built on exhibition awards, and its collapse before the century closed.

David Gerstel's short fiction for Pipedia follows a piece of meerschaum on its journey from a mine near Eskişehir to an Italian carver's bench. Not a documentary history, but a literary narrative built around the material.

Lovat, Prince, Oom Paul, Canadian: where the names of briar pipe shapes come from, which ones actually describe the shape, and why the industry eventually abandoned names for numbers.

Meerschaum was regarded as the 'queen of pipes' throughout the 19th century. This entry examines what the title rested on, how the founding legend stands up against the archival record, how the golden age came to a close, and the history of antique collecting.

The present-day shape of a scattered field where factory brands and one-person workshops, the local tobacconist and the online seller, the trade show and the auction, all stand side by side.

American maker Trever Talbert's view of pipe design: a flexible method that selects from an accumulated sketchbook on the block itself, rather than following rigid pre-drawn plans.