Rather late this year, spring is arriving now in Holland. During the winter months we had several groups visiting the museum, of which the most spectacular was the Battery Bastion from Naarden, a group full dressed in Napoleonic uniforms. They got a special guided tour through the Pijpenkabinet Museum, focused on smoking in early nineteenth century, including the numerous Napoleon-related pipes. The evening ended in smoking a pipe accompanied by a good glass of Dutch genever.

Lessons in Pipe smoking
Due to the strict tobacco laws and their restrictive regulations our smoking evenings and pipe smoking courses we did in the nineties, have been interrupted for a while. This spring a new series of meetings for new and aspirant pipe smokers will start.

The following days are scheduled:

Wednesday 19 April 2006
Thursday 11 may 2006
Wednesday 14 June 2006

During the course the basics of enjoying pipe smoking – not to confuse with smoking in general – will be explained. The way of filling a pipe, lighting and keeping the fire going in the fist place, but also the shapes of the pipes, the various tobaccos and the care of your pipe will be discussed. These instructive evenings take place in the perfect ambiance of the Pijpenkabinet and are at the same time social gatherings where the participants get a feeling for the rich culture of pipe smoking in general.

The evening starts at 8 PM, coffee is ready from 7.30 onwards. Who needs to acquire a pipe beforehand, can come to the shop at 7 PM to make his choice. Participants are registered as benefactors to the Museum by paying a donation of € 25.

Pijpenkabinet website revised
The World Wide Web has changed a lot since the Pijpenkabinet launched its first website in 2001. At first our site was just an electronic brochure, to which gradually all kinds of activities and publications were added. Last winter the website has been revised, colours refreshed, information updated. Procreative parts are added: every page has a series of thumbnail pictures to the right, all containing a link to one of the fields of collecting. These additional pages give some more samples of the rich collections, both in text and pictures.

This is only the start of a huge project which aims at publishing lager parts of the museum collection on the internet.

The sections Smokiana pipeshop and Pipeclub are to be renovated soon.

First lustrum Amsterdam Pipe Smokers Society
The Amsterdam Pipe Smokers Society (Amsterdams Pijprokers Genootschap) just celebrated its first lustrum. Founded five years ago, on the initiative of a few arduous pipe smokers and the Pijpenkabinet, the club grew to a steady group of pipe aficionados meeting each month in the Amsterdam art club Arti et Amicitia. Starting with a meal and enjoying the Italian wine of the house, one of the members give a kick-off for a long discussion with an introduction to a theme of his choice. Members enjoy the pipe, the tobacco and discussion in good company. To our opinion – and statutes – this aspects are not to be combined with a smoking contest, as many of the Dutch pipe clubs do.

A commission from the club is established to develop an unexpected way to give publicity to the club and its jubilee; what and how? – we keep you posted !

The pipe and archaeology
Pipe research is hot in archaeology. Two new articles prove the interest in the history of smoking.

The fist is a 1st grade thesis of a student from the Amsterdam University, Arjan den Braven. He did a practical course at the Dutch Institute for Maritime Archaeology (NISA) in Lelystad and studied the pipes on board of the Dutch sailing ships in the eighteenth century, both the smoking equipment of the sailors and the cargo for trading. This resulted in a 34-page report entitled Tabakspijpen aan boord, Een overzicht van de kleipijpen uit de wrakken van het Burgzand (Waddenzee).

In Flanders, Wim Tiri, president of a society for archaeology, wrote an article on the pipes found at a local abbey. The intriguing title reads: Een non die een pijpje roken kon? Een Goudse pijp uit de abdij van Roosendael te Sint-Katelijne-Waver (a nun who can smoke a pipe? A Gouda pipe from Rosendael Abbey), published in Yearbook 3, “Opgetekend Verleden”, Mechelen, 2005.

Acquisitions for the Pijpenkabinet collections

Driftwood pipe
The pipe illustrated aside is made out of a piece of wood found on the beaches of Japan. The wood is just a part of a tree, naturally shaped and afterwards stained by sand and water, bleached by sea and sun. These pieces of ‘accidental art’ are most popular in Japan, because of their unexpected forms. This pipe is made out of such a tree trunk, mounted in spectacular silver work. The mouthpiece is shaped as a double gourd, ending in a typical Japanese kiseru-tip. The pipe bowl itself is placed on a silver base, representing a woody landscape from which flowers pop up, in a kind of Art-Nouveau style.
To European standards the pipe bowl is very tiny, but for a Japanese pipe it is huge, since they use a strong tobacco in a very fine cut.
Amsterdam, Pijpenkabinet collections Pk 17.646

Portrait pipe from Germany
The history of the wooden pipe, especially the pre-briar time, is still largely unknown and certainly unrecorded. This is proven by the recent acquisition of a wooden portrait pipe displaying a Turkish head with turban. Since this pipe is made out of a kind of wood that will burn if lighted, the interior of the bowl is protected by a metal inlay. The carving of the bowl and sub-stem is of outstanding quality and should date 1830-1850. The representations of a Turkish head, not really a portrait, rather a type of exotic man, displays a short curly beard and hair fashionable in that period. As many German pipes, this one has a silver cover, appropriately closing with a half moon ornament. A beautiful horn stem, safely attached with a silver chain, complete the pipe. Possibly this pipe is a product form Ruhla in Germany, but as stated before, much is still uncertain about these pipes.
Amsterdam, Pijpenkabinet collections Pk 17.757

A remarkable photograph
Some acquisitions to a museum collection are not beautiful, not even worth displaying, but still worth for their historical value. This photograph is an example. It shows the stand at one of the World Exhibitions of a Gouda pipe manufacturer. These shows were very popular and important to firms for their promotion in the second half of the nineteenth century so photographs of these early shows are rare. A few are already known, such as the clay pipe stand at the Philadelphia Exhibition of 1876. This photo seems to be taken at the workshop of Pieter Goedewaagen at the Raam in Gouda. The stand is built up at home as a prove for its construction and appearance, photo taken as a help to rebuild it at the show. Most probably the stand was meant for the Vienna Exhibition in 1873. After the show the photograph was stored with other papers in a box that accidentally came into our possession. The picture was difficult to recognise and would most probably have been throne away if not recognised as a pipe related document. If so, a bit of pipe history and manufacturers proudness would have been lost forever.
Amsterdam, Pijpenkabinet collections Pk 17.714

Gifts to the museum
Marga de Bruin, Amersfoort, pipes
Teye Buma, Amsterdam, tobacco pipe
Tom Dunn, New York, tobacco pipe
Mrs. Stomps, Diemen, pipes and curios
Eric van der Wal, Castricum, briar pipes
Arjan den Braven, Amsterdam, article
Hans Tushuizen, Zaandam, documentation
Bert Verhaar, Wassenaar, book

Donations
In the 1980’s and 1990’s the Pijpenkabinet had a group of Friends who did donations to sustain the museum. During the long period of moving and redecorating the museum in Amsterdam, promotion and activities faded away. With the new electronic newsletter, it is easier to inform and motivate the people. Donations are possible and most welcome to sustain and facilitate the work of the museum, both in research, collecting, publishing and open the fly of information on the internet.

As part of your charity donations (for the church, health aid, poverty relief and cultural aid) you can use the donations to the Pijpenkabinet foundations as a reduction on you income tax. Other possibilities are a written approval for a multi-year donation, fully tax deductible, for whatever amount you whish. For more information, ask Benedict Goes at the Pijpenkabinet. mailto:goes@pijpenkabinet.nl

Donors of at least € 20 will be added to the list of benefactors below. As a “Friend of the Museum” you get free entrance to the museum, of course!
Please use the following codes for bank reference:
Accountnumber at Postbank: 310.40.88
BIC code: PSTBNL21
IBAN: NL56 PSTB 0003 1040 88
attn: Stichting Pijpenkabinet, Amsterdam, Netherlands

A.C. van der Graaf & B. Goedewaagen, Groningen
Martien Heemskerk, Roelofarendsveen
R.F. Knibbe, Zeist
G. Heuff, Wassenaar
Gus McIlhenny, Appletown, USA
Sebastiaan Ostkamp, Amsterdam
mr K.G.W. van Oven, ‘s-Gravenhage
Huub Passtoors, Egmond-Binnen
Han Schellings, Amsterdam
J.C. Smelik & A. Stokking, Franeker
P. van der Velden, ’s-Gravenhage
Dunya Verwey, Amsterdam

Broken pipes
A sad message is the decease of Tom Dunn from New York in December 2005. He was the editor of the so-called ‘most irregular quarterly’ for pipe smokers, the Pipe Smokers Ephemeris, printed since 1965. He started as a hobby, but steadily his correspondence with pipe smokers, collectors, and makers all over the world expanded. Arranging the messages, news items and comments in categories such as briars, clays, Sherlockiana, books, etc, etc, he compiled an amazing magazine once or twice a year. He never made the change to electronic lay-out. With Tom Dunn a character in pipe smoking and a unique initiative is lost.

Link of the month
How many websites are related to pipe smoking? Probably thousands. We have chosen a remarkable one: http://victor.ryazan.net/eng/pipe/brand.html
It is a page from a website of a Russian artist with quite bizarre works. Apart from his painting he is a pipe smoker. He has collected a huge series of pipe brands and their logo, arranged in an attractive web page.

The publications of the Pijpenkabinet are now available at the internet bookshop specialised in archaeology: HALOS. The director René Oudhuis, has the representation of many Dutch archaeological institutions, now including the Pijpenkabinet. On his website www.halos.nl it is easy to order books and pay them in an electronic way. This will promote the sale of books on pipe history to new clients and libraries.

Exhibitions
The Tobacco Museum in Wervik (Belgium) presents an exhibition entitled “Smokes for Soldiers, tobacco usage around World War I”. Around Wervik, in the front line of Iepre, the allied soldiers have promoted the use of cigarettes. This is shown in the exhibition in photographs, publicity and objects.
Tobacco Museum Wervik, Koestraat 63, Wervik, Belgium

The Museum of Posters (Affichemuseum) in Hoorn (north of Amsterdam) has another exhibition on cigarettes: poster size tobacco advertisements. Famous designers have created cigarette advertisement combining strong images as the camel, the cowboy, the girl with catching slogans. These are on view from April 23 to June 8 2006.
Affichemuseum, Grote Oost 2-4, Hoorn

Requested
As you probably know the Pijpenkabinet Foundation is active in enlarging the collection of the museum, both beautiful pieces for the exhibition and additions to the encyclopaedical reference collection. Although we have good contacts in the antique trade and auction houses, it is far more difficult to trace pipes in private possession. For this reason we ask your assistance in offering us pipes you have yourself or of which you know another person is willing to part.

Although we have an acquisition budget, not all pipes are worth the money. The value can be the information which is related to the object, just because it is an example of a certain type. Since it is the mission of the Pijpenkabinet to collect and record the history of pipe smoking, even a humble pipe can be worthwhile to offer. Please contact us if you have any suggestions.

End of this 4rd Newsletter
Thank you for your interest and till the next issue !
We are happy to respond to any reactions or questions. Just click on mailto:info@pijpenkabinet .
Or continue on our web site http://www.pijpenkabinet.nl/

Benedict Goes
Public Services Pijpenkabinet

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