Pipes of various materials

Clay, meerschaum and briar are the most common materials for the production of tobacco pipes. In history, however, a lot of experiments have been done with other materials, both metals and organic. Metal pipes have been produced from early times onwards: brass, bronze, iron and even silver. As you can imagine metal is not very comfortable to the smoker, because it heats up too quickly, while the taste is never good.

A wide variety of pipes made of organic materials exist: antlers, bone, ivory, fish teeth, buffalo horn, coral and shell. Even the pincers of a crab has been transformed into a pipe. Other pipes were made of mother of pearl, agate, coquianut, crystal or glass.

The qualities and limitations of the various materials gave new designs, often resulting in oddities rather than a functional smoking pipe. Many creations are not really a guaranty for cool, dry smoke, including a functional design for comfortable handling. So a lot of these pipes we hardly can imagine to match with a smoker.

In the end of the nineteenth century the briar industry conquered the world and experiments with unusual materials stopped gradually.

 tobacco pipe made from an antler with carved hunting scene, Austria, 1830-1850 a monster carved out of staghorn with silver mounting, Austria, 1840-1860
detail of the hunter and his dogs, Austria, 1830-1850
pipe bowl with grotesk face and animal decorations from staghorn, Austria, 1840-1860
grotesque mask from antler, Austria, 1880-1900
rustic pipe from staghorn with buffalo horn mouthpiece, Austria, 1850-1880
large pipe from turned kerbauw horn, India, 1850-1880
rare tobacco pipe the bowl made from a fish tooth, France, 1840-1860
a finely carved woman's face on the head of a parrot executed in coquianut, France, 1800-1830 tobacco pipe made from coquianut with nicely carved historic scene, France, 1800-1830
small tobacco pipe from the pincette of a crab, West-Indies, 1840-1870
side view of the pincette with floral decoration, West-Indies, 1840-1870
tobacco pipe made out of fish bone with a stem from ivory, Eskimo, 1900-1930
horn pipe with wooden bowl, Saint-Claude, France, 1880-1900
cheroot holder from buffalo horn with hoof shaped bowl, bowl base and stem partly covered with imitation animal skin, France, 1880-1920
tobacco pipe from reindeer bone with carved leafdecoration and painting of reindeers, Lapland, 1880-1900
cigar holder in amber and vulcanite, Amsterdam, Holland, 1900-1920
tobacco pipe in cast iron representing the bust of Napoleon, Thüringen, Germany, 1840-1870
popular reading pipe with a bent stem in iron, Holland, 1820-1860
tobacco pipe from calabash with meerschaum bowl interior and amber stem, incover, the Netherlands, 1910-1930
silver cigar holder with knot in the stem, Kampen, the Netherlands, 1890-1900
tobacco pipe made of precious stone, the buffalo stem holds a pipe cleaner, Germany, 1840-1860
calabash pipe with large meerschaum bowl interior and vulcanite stem, Parker, London, England, 1960-1970
eight sided tobacco pipe with engraved silver mountings, Germany, 1830-1860
pipe made from agate like stone with silver rims and lid, Idar-Oberstein, Germany, 1820-1850
the earliest type of cobcorn pipe with a reed stem, Colorado, USA, 1880-1910
small pipe in agate with engraved gold bands, Idar-Oberstein, Germany and the Netherlands, 1880-1900
cheroot holder from carved crystal, Bohemia, Germany, 1870-1900
large pipe from Venetian glass decorated with nodds, Venice, Italy, 1880-1910
cheroot holder in painted Mercury glass with amber mouthpiece, Germany, 1880-1900
pipe made out of Bohemian crystal mounted with a silver lid, Germany, 1830-1860
cheroot holder in vulcanized rubber with claw decoration, France, 1890-1910
All objects on this page are part of collections of the museum Pijpenkabinet, Amsterdam. © copyright Pijpenkabinet