1) Yes.
2) After each smoke, I lightly scrape with the head of a pipe nail. Then I wad a paper towels and use it like a soft reamer.
3) Not terribly. I've smoke lots of heavy latakia blends in mine, but I can change over to JackKnife Plug without noticing a lat ghost.

 

1.) Obviously since you are burning tobacco it should show, but should the bowl turn black very quickly?

As Meer is a natural porous stone you never know exactly how it will age...I have had a pipe darken along the stem and bowl bottom in two smokes and then take years to even out up the bowl.

2.) How do you avoid cake building up? (None has, it's only two days old.)

I have never taken any tool to my bowls...after I smoke I take a cloth diaper (I cut them into strips) and wipe out the inside of the bowl. In all my years of Meer smoking I have never had a problem.

3.) How well will meerschaum retain a ghost?

If you clean it after you smoke, I've never noticed one no matter how rancid the blend I smoke. Make SURE you clean the mouthpiece well, you can get some dried moisture the ghosts.

 

Found this shop while looking up meer FAQs, sorry if you've already visited the site. Their prices seem very reasonable:

AND Meerschaum Pipes

 

The only tobacco I've had a problem with in a meer is Butternut Burley, which I immediately switched to my old Dr. Grabow. Gad, I could smell it in that meer for a couple of weeks...

 

Found this shop while looking up meer FAQs, sorry if you've already visited the site. Their prices seem very reasonable:

AND Meerschaum Pipes

I've bought a few from them in the past. They aren't bad by any means. They sell reliable low-middle range products at very good prices. They also have a good habit of showing you an exact photo of the pipe you buy: once you've bought it, they remove it from the catalog. Frankly, these days I'd save my money for a good artisan produced meer, or an IMP, or go through one of the well-known dealers like Altinok. But I'd rather get one good pipe that I really like than two that I don't. But AND is certainly ok for an entry-level test to see if you like meer. Their calabash are good for the price, probably pressed meer but they work fine! Choose a thick-walled model, their thin ones get really hot.

The price of an AND L-size is about $79. An IMP at smokingpipe.com starts at around $135. I don't even own an IMP, but reading the reviews, I guess there are good reasons for the difference in price. Don't expect miracles, when something is cheap there's usually a reason!

 

I wouldn't take a tool to my meer at all. After each bowl, I just wipe it out with a paper towel. There should be no ghosting because there is no cake, which is the most absorptive element in any pipe, but Mark does show us there are exceptions.

 

I have an IMP & an AND. There is a real reason for the difference in price.

 

I have an IMP & an AND. There is a real reason for the difference in price.

Douglas, care to expand on that a bit? Is it mainly the matter of the tendons and connectors? I think the screw-in types on the AND pipes are their big weak point. I had one pipe where the connector wanted to come out of the shank much more easily than the stem wanted to unscrew from the shank, which was a major nuisance. Or are you talking about the quality of the meer? Or all round?

I've just put in an order for an IMP that I saw going quite cheap on the FleaBay. I've never heard anything more than a few cautioning mutters about "the trader on eBay", but I'm going to try it with my usual online purchase attitude with vendors I've never dealt with before: it's a bit of a poker game, you might walk away with empty pockets. I must say, I've been buying stuff on eBay for years now (panama hats, fountain pens, old magazines) and I've really only ever had one disastrous purchase. I think I'm still ahead.

I asked a question the other day about quality of meerschaum. I had an interesting chat with Ahmet Govem about this, when he quoted me a higher price for a smooth-surfaced pipe than for an ornamented one. I was curious: I would have thought ornamented would have been more work. He said that smooth pipes generally require a higher grade of block meerschaum than ornamented ones, where the carver can hide imperfections. For me, while I like a nice looking pipe as much as the next person, I'm mostly concerned with smoking quality. I'm not sure if the difference in quality of the block has any impact on that. In general, though, when craftsmen use higher quality materials, they put in more effort to making sure the whole thing is good, perhaps because the margins are a bit higher.

 

First, I am no meer expert. Therefore much of what I say will be educated guesses. The tenons are rather narrow for my tastes. But on mine, I don't unscre the mortise piece form th shank. To remove the stem I just turn clockwise and pull it out. When I return the stem I also turn clockwise. Neither the tenon nor the mortise is meant to be unscrewed from shank or stem. Their website states that they are made from block meerschaum. I can't tell, but they have been around long enough that if they were lying and really using pressed meer, somebody would have called them out on it by now. IIRC, the best meer is found deep in the mines. Which means that what is found near the top is not as good quality. Then the craftsmanship is not as good. The drilling is off a little. The fit is not as good. Maybe they were made by apprentices. These are not very good photos but the AND on the left is coloring a shade of gray. The IMP, a more traditional amber like color.

 

Douglas, after reading your post, I got out my old AND Meerschaum "topkapi" model, loaded her with Hal O the Wynd and lit her up. The diameter of the bowl is a bit small for my favorite tobaccos (English, Balkan), but great for something like HOTW. It's still much better than a cob for this purpose. But some of the things you said are definitely true. I can run a pipe cleaner all the way down the stem and shank into the bowl, but only if I twist the very end of the cleaner and then fiddle for a bit. Not a bad pipe, by any means. My anti-smoking gf says it's the "cutest" and "prettiest" of all my pipes, too - the one she encourages me to take with me when we're going out.