Old Meerschaum lined pipe with no lining?

[Garlisk]

Fellow BLers,
I was lucky enough to find a couple pipes recently while digging through the basement of my grandparents house. They are either my grandfathers or his fathers (neither are around anymore to tell me) and regardless I was pretty excited by the find. Both are in terrible condition.

One is a zulu style, no markings, but looks well drilled and well smoked. Unfortunately the bit is broken. When time and money allows, I will send it off for repair/refinishing.

The other is a meerschaum lined pipe. Marked France 9435 (maybe 9436?) and on the other side there is some script that I might be able to comprehend if I knew what it said, and it says Meerschaum Lined. Problem is, the meerschaum lining is gone, and it looks like it was smoked without it. And the bit needs help too. Is it possible to get a new meerschaum lining installed? Does anyone do that kind of restoration?

I guess I better take a couple pics as well, or you guys will be all over me anyway.

 

[Hirsute]

Vermont Freehand sells Meerschaum bowl liners so you could try to fit one yourself. I don't know of any repair services that do that work, but it wouldn't hurt to contact them to find out. Try the usual suspects: Briarville, Norwood, Walker Briar Works, Tim West, and Mark Tinsky. One of them might be able to do it.


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[Kentos]

Is there any possibility that the Meer lining is just caked up badly?

 

[Shave_Rat]

Is there any possibility that the Meer lining is just caked up badly?

This would be my initial suspicion as well. The briar walls on the meer lined stuff is usually pretty darned thin, and I can't imagine anyone with any pipe smoking experience trying to smoke it without the meer lining in there.

 

[Garlisk]

I don't think so fellas. The thing that made me investigate the pipe much closer was the phenomenally bad drilling, on a straight pipe, no less...3/16" or so up the wall of the pipe. Obviously, when the lining was in there it was it was fine.

Looking at it again, I see what's going on here. The lining is in the pipe...in the upper half. Somehow the bottom of the lining is broken out. There is a jagged "ledge" going all the way around the inside of the pipe around half the depth of the bowl. So my statement about somebody having smoked it is because of the char on the leftover meer on the upper half of the lining.

After digging around a bit online, it looks like meer linings are susceptible to this kind of cracking. I'll probably just set it aside and focus on the zulu for now.

 

[nortac]

I'm on a Zulu kick at the moment and that Zulu is awesome! Well worth restoring!

 

[Shave_Rat]

I don't think so fellas. The thing that made me investigate the pipe much closer was the phenomenally bad drilling, on a straight pipe, no less...3/16" or so up the wall of the pipe. Obviously, when the lining was in there it was it was fine.

Looking at it again, I see what's going on here. The lining is in the pipe...in the upper half. Somehow the bottom of the lining is broken out. There is a jagged "ledge" going all the way around the inside of the pipe around half the depth of the bowl. So my statement about somebody having smoked it is because of the char on the leftover meer on the upper half of the lining.

After digging around a bit online, it looks like meer linings are susceptible to this kind of cracking. I'll probably just set it aside and focus on the zulu for now.

They are prone to that. I have a pipe that was my dad's, who barely/rarely smoked it, and the meer lining is cracked on it. With mine, I'm going to have it be a display piece with sentimental value only (since the pipe was a present from my mom to my dad way way back in their college days).

 

[Commander Quan]

I am going to take a guess that the second pipe was made by GBD the unidentifiable marking may be those letters or a private label it was sold under. The France and 4 number stamping (and the fact that the number matches their billiard shape) is a pretty good indicator.

 

[Garlisk]

Filed the broken bit of the Zulu off, scraped the cake, and generally cleaned it up. Not the prettiest restoration, but ill be darned if im not enjoying some Carter Hall in it right now. I can already tell this is a good smoker.

 

[nortac]

I was about to suggest that you do what you've already done. Bravo!