Siyahi

Siyahi is a name that appears in international pipe brand compilations as a Turkish-origin meerschaum pipe brand. According to the record, the brand belonged to a meerschaum pipe company of the same name; the company's founding year, founder, the city where its workshop stood, and how long it operated remain unknown. In this respect, Siyahi is a typical example of brand names whose products have survived while their corporate trail has been erased.

Spelling of the Name and Details on Record

Information about the brand rests on a single chain: a few lines in a reference compilation on pipe makers and brands, and the encyclopedic sources that have carried this note forward. Although the entry's heading is Siyahi, in the body of the text both the brand and the company title are written as "Sihahi." The difference between the two spellings comes down to a single letter; "siyahi" is a word in use in Turkish, while "sihahi" has no such meaning. For this reason the form in the body is considered a transcription or typesetting error; however, no second document has survived to show which spelling actually appeared on the brand's stamp.

The only technical detail on record is that the pipes were finished with acrylic mouthpieces and synthetic amber parts. The combined use of these two materials points to the period when genuine amber was first replaced by early plastics and then by acrylic; for more detail see the mouthpiece materials entry. This material choice places the brand roughly in the second half of the twentieth century, without allowing for a more precise dating.

The Isle of Man Record

The same compilation reports that some of the pipes sold under the Siyahi name were made on the Isle of Man by "Manx Meerschaum," citing pipe writer Richard Carleton Hacker as the source. The island's place in meerschaum pipe production is documented: Laxey Pipes Ltd., working out of a four-story stone building at the pier head in Old Laxey, produced meerschaum bowls from the late 1960s until 2001 for houses such as Peterson, Barling, and Nørding, and also used names such as Manxpipe, Manxman, and Manxland for its own line. In restoration writing, these pipes are still often referred to simply as "Manx."

What stands out in the record is this: the stone Laxey worked was not from Eskişehir but meerschaum extracted from the Amboseli basin in East Africa by Tanganyika Meerschaum Corporation. Consequently, these pipes bearing the name of a Turkish-origin brand are not Turkish in either their body stone or their workmanship. When the African supply ran out, the workshop released its last meerschaum pipes in 2001, and after an attempt to switch to briar failed to take hold, it closed in 2002. There is no separate manufacturer record corresponding to the name "Manx Meerschaum"; since there is no indication of any other pipe maker on the island besides Laxey, this name is thought to point to the same workshop.

The Problem of Undocumentation

A Turkish-origin meerschaum brand would be expected to be linked to the Eskişehir area; almost all commercially workable meerschaum deposits are found in this province. Throughout the twentieth century, a great many small workshops operated in the region, some exporting under their own brand and others working under contract for foreign firms; most closed without leaving behind a catalogue, a registration record, or an archive. Given this scattered structure of Eskişehir meerschaum carving, it is not surprising that only a few lines have survived about Siyahi today. What is known about the brand will continue to rest on this single record until a stamped example or a period document comes to light.