Meerschaum: Tobacco Smoking With Style

Meerschaum: Tobacco Smoking With Style

Meerschaum: Tobacco Smoking With Style

Meerschaum is a substance used extensively to create the artistically designed pipes used by discerning tobacco smokers worldwide. Here are some of the basic facts about this substance. Also known as Sepiolite, it is a soft, opaque mineral. Mostly white, grey or cream in color, it is often seen floating on the Dead Sea, making it look like sea foam. It belongs to the soapstone family and its scientific name is hydrous magnesium silicate.

Avid connoisseurs and collectors of high quality, vintage tobacco pipes will be interested to know that it also goes by several aliases. These include (but are not limited to) Venus of the Sea, White Goddess, Aktas, Vienna Stone, Patal and Pierre de Savon Maroc. Aphroditea soft, white mineral from Swedenis closely related to it.

When it first goes through the extraction process, Meerschaum is soft with a hardness of only 2.0 attributed to it. However, when exposed to the sunlight or when dried in a warm enclosure, it gradually hardens. It is then that it is intricately carved into various shapes representing people, animals, or animal parts, to form beautifully engraved tobacco pipes. The material is known to be distributed in Morocco and some parts of France, Spain, Greece and Moravia. In the U.S.A., it occurs in rock-forming serpentine mineral deposits in Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Utah.

Before it is made into a pipe, the naturally occurring nodules on the substance are first removed by scraping. The nodules are then dried, scraped again and finally coated with wax polish. These original crude masses of Meerschaum are then carved, smoothened, heated in wax and then given a final coat of polish, usually with bone ash.

Occasionally, Meerschaum is also used as an alternative for soapstone and Fullers earth. The latter is a nonplastic material most often used to decolorize and filter grease and oils. When tobacco is smoked in Meerschaum pipes, the pipes gradually begin to change color. As the pipes grow older, they change through shades of yellow, orange and red starting from the base. This is because the material absorbs nicotine, consequently growing darker with time.

Originally, Meerschaum products were manufactured in and around European production centers such as Vienna. Since the latter part of the last century, Turkey has been trying to foster the local business, by placing a complete ban on the export of Meerschaum and therefore has gained a monopoly in the market. Pipes, which are obtained from producers other than Turkish manufacturers, are usually made from pressed Meerschaum or African Meerschaum, both of which are not as high quality as the original Turkish material. The more intricately carved Meerschaum pipes are sought after as collectibles and fetch a good price in the market even today.

POST COMMENT

How To Dress in a Vintage Style Designing Your Own Organic T-Shirt Web Designing Services: As Good As UK's Service Niehaus Wireframing Method and Its Importance in User Interface Design Hairstyles in 5 Reasons Why Your Company Logo Needs a Redesign! Web Design Lancaster Brogue Boots- Highly Fashionable and Great Designs How to Get Rid of Cold Sores Forever Naturally With Simple Diet and Lifestyle Changes Get the Hottest Style This Season With Men's Deck Shoes Modern Technologies Help Embroiderers Set Intricate Embroidery Design on Logo Shirts Church Banners Hold a Lot of Importance in Announcing Improve Your Style Statement With The Help Of Espadrille Shoes