SMS (SMS Meerschaums & Briars)

SMS is an import and distribution brand bringing meerschaum pipes carved in Eskişehir to the United States market. It is not a workshop producing pipes at its own bench, but an intermediary that commissions work from independent carvers in Türkiye and puts the finished pipes into circulation in the US under its own name. With a history spanning more than forty years, it is considered one of the most familiar names for Turkish meerschaum in America.

Founding and Family Business

The brand was founded in 1980 by Şamil Sermet, from Eskişehir, and his wife Beth Sermet. The business is known as SMS Meerschaums & Briars; its face online is SMS Pipes. In US trade directory records, the company appears under the title Sermet International, Inc., based in Vancouver, Washington, with a founding year of 1980. According to the company's own account, Şamil Sermet took a buying trip to Türkiye every year and personally managed the relationship with the carvers.

Following Şamil Sermet's death, the business has been carried on within the family: his wife Beth Sermet is credited on the office and ordering side, their son Mert Sermet in day-to-day operations, and Şamil Sermet's sister Emel Sağtekin in quality control. Sağtekin is stated to have held this role since 1988. According to records, SMS is considered a supplier reaching close to five hundred tobacconists nationwide.

Import Model and the Eskişehir Connection

SMS's business model rests on the scattered workshop structure of Eskişehir meerschaum carving. The company buys pipes from master carvers, most of whom work in and around Eskişehir. According to the brand's own promotion, it maintains an ongoing working relationship with about ten masters; the names mentioned include Salim Şener, Erdoğan Ege, Sadık Yanık, İsmail Bağlan, Yunus Ege, Ramazan Karaca, Tekin Gök, and masters from the Gezer family. It is emphasized that only pipes carved from natural block meerschaum are used, and that material obtained by pressing stone chips is not employed.

The pipes generally do not carry the carver's signature; the only mark on them is SMS. This is a common arrangement among importer brands, and it creates a difficulty for collectors: which master a given SMS pipe came from can only be guessed at from its shape and workmanship style. This same circumstance also explains why the distinction between artisan pipe and factory pipe is not easily drawn in the Turkish meerschaum market.

Products and Distinguishing Marks

The catalogue draws on two strands. On one side are meerschaum interpretations of classic pipe shapes such as the billiard and bent billiard; on the other are the figural carvings that are the true specialty of the Eskişehir school: motifs such as bowl held in a claw, sultan and pasha heads, animal figures, and skulls fall into this second group. Lattice work, where the body is pierced in an openwork technique, is also common.

Acrylic and vulcanite are used for mouthpieces, and the brand name is inlaid on the left cheek of the mouthpiece. The pipes come with a hard presentation box lined in golden fabric; the round label inside the box carries SMS at the center, surrounded by English wording noting hand-carved block meerschaum and Türkiye. This box-and-inlay arrangement is the main clue used to identify a pipe circulating on the secondhand market.

The Briar Line

SMS's second line of business is pipes made from briar: the company handles US distribution for the Italian brand Lorenzo. Lorenzo's origins trace back to the Fratelli Lana workshop, founded in 1900 in the town of Gallarate, Lombardy; the business passed into the hands of the Tagliabue family in 1946, and the brand took its current name in 1969. In this way, SMS brings meerschaum and briar together under one roof, as its business name itself suggests.