The History of Clay Pipes.

The first pipes created in Europe date back to the late 1500′s and were handmade from clay. The clay selected for pipe making was generally kaolin, a off-white mineral of aluminum silicate blended with very fine sand. Kaolin turned out to be easily molded but still robust enough to prevent the fire getting to the smokers body or clothing.

By the mid nineteenth century, clay pipes represented the most common pipe in America.  As a matter of fact, clay pipes were so abundant and cheap that tobacco companies provided a free pipe with the purchase of some of their tobaccos. The clay pipe industry would prosper for almost 4 centuries, in fact they are still manufactured in small quantities to this day.

The clay pipe is the most common pipe ever to have been manufactured, as it was easy for large numbers to be molded and mass produced. They were constructed in a two piece mold of wood or iron. The dampened clay was pushed into the mold by hand, removed to dry out in the open, then hardened in the kiln with extreme heat. Low-quality clay pipes were really constructed from porcelain slip poured into a mold. These were porous, of very low quality, and gave unwanted flavors to the smoke. Superior clay pipes, on the other hand, were manufactured in a labor-intensive operation that called for beating all air out of the clay, hand-rolling each pipe prior to molding it, piercing with a fine wire and then careful firing.

The majority of clay pipes were very characterless in design and decoration. The longer-stemmed churchwarden pipes dominated the day in earlier times, whilst the simple elbow shaped bowl and shank were more common in the nineteenth century. Traditionally, clay pipes are un-glazed, however the French maker Gambier made the finest and most adorned pipes in history. These figurative pipes were highly ornamental works of art, illustrated with busts of noblemen, heroes and other celebrated personalities.

Clay pipes were also manufactured and utilised in other places. For instance, in Africa tribes broadened their tribal art onto pipes. Employing local clays treated with tiny pebbles and shells, the fire hardened clayware displayed stylised art of wild animals, geometric decorations and human forms. The Middle Eastern peoples were inclined towards very smooth terracotta Chibouks fitted with very long stems. This long stem enabled the smoker to sit on the floor whilst he savored his smoke. The long stem also piped the smoke across a longer distance, cooling off the potent tasting Turkish or Oriental tobacco.

Clay pipe advocates lay claim that, opposed to other materials, a superior clay pipe affords a pure smoke, without any flavor addition from the pipe bowl.

A smoking pipe for tobacco smoking typically consists of a small chamber (the bowl) for the combustion of the tobacco to be smoked and a thin stem (shank) that ends in a mouthpiece (the bit). Pipes can range from the very simple machine-made briar pipe to highly-prized handmade and artful implements created by renowned pipemakers which are often very expensive collector’s items.

The bowls of tobacco pipes are commonly made of briar, meerschaum, corncob or clay. Less common are cherrywood, olivewood, maple, mesquite, oak, and bog-wood. Generally a dense-grained wood is ideal. Minerals such as catlinite and soapstone have also been used. Pipe bowls of all these materials are sometimes carved with a great deal of artistry.

Unusual, but still noteworthy pipe bowl materials include gourds, as in the famous calabash pipe, and pyrolytic graphite.^[1] Metal and glass are uncommon materials for tobacco pipes, but are common for pipes intended for other substances.

The stem needs a long channel of constant position and diameter running through it, and this is difficult to carve out of a pre-existing block. Because it is molded rather than carved, clay may make up the entire pipe or just the bowl, but most other materials have stems made separately and detachable. Stems and bits of tobacco pipes are usually made of moldable materials like vulcanite, lucite, Bakelite, and soft plastic. Less common are stems made of reeds, bamboo, or hollowed out pieces of wood. Expensive pipes once had stems made of amber, though this is rare now.

Tobaccos for smoking in pipes are often carefully treated and blended to achieve flavour nuances not available in other tobacco products. Many of these are blends using staple ingredients of variously cured Burley and Virginia tobaccos which are enhanced by spice tobaccos, among them many Oriental or Balkan varietals, Latakia (a fire-cured spice tobacco of Cypriot or Syrian origin), Perique (uniquely grown in St. James Parish, Louisiana) or blends of Virginia and Burley tobaccos of African, Indian, or South American origins. Traditionally, many U.S. blends are made of American Burley with sweeteners and flavorings added to create an “aromatic” flavor, whereas “English” blends are based on natural Virginia tobaccos enhanced with Oriental and other natural tobaccos. There is a growing tendency towards “natural” tobaccos which derive their aromas from artful blending with selected spice tobaccos only and careful, often historically-based, curing processes.