Preview MuseumNight
24 October 2019
The theme of Museum Night Amsterdam 2019 is 'treasure hunting'. On November 2 it will be exciting in the Amsterdam Pipe Museum, perhaps a little creepy. For this evening we turn off the light and you can search and observe with your personal flashlight. This is how the details in the collection stand out best. You can look for the most bizarre pipes in strange shapes from all over the world. One display case will be very special: it contains only skulls - a popular motif in pipe design during the nineteenth century. Ticket sales start today, be quick because the N8 usually sells out quickly.
PermalinkAmsterdam City Walk
19 October 2019
Today the Amsterdam City Walk takes place again, an annual event where our museum is included in the route. Fortunately with a nice sun, but not for those who left first, because the first passers-by were walking around 9 am under a grey sky. Our canal house is a resting point for those who want to take a break and at the same time enjoy culture. We also serve tea or coffee for walkers. Although most runners keep pace, the sign is always a calling card for the 9,500 participants! Those hasty walkers may stop another time to pay a visit. Brand awareness is important after all.
PermalinkShe/He or gender differences
7 October 2019
During October, History Month, the Amsterdam Pipe Museum will put special pipes in the window on the theme She/He or gender differences. In pipe smoking there is a difference between what men and what women use. Especially in other parts of the world. For example, women in the Eastern Cape of South Africa smoke pipes of acacia wood decorated with colourful beads at ritual gatherings. The magic power is transferred through the pipe. In Cameroon, only men are allowed to smoke from pipes decorated with human masks and animal figures. Women smoke the same amount, but then from pipes with geometric decorations, more subtle in decor but so beautiful. Things are different again in Japan, where geishas smoke very elegant pipes with a minute bowl: a single puff and the tobacco is gone. All these pipes can be seen the full month of October at the Prinsengracht.
PermalinkDiary excerpts from Don Duco
2 October 2019
While fifty years of active collecting can turn into a rich collection, it is also a period in which you experience adventures as a collector. Every find is an event on itself. Digging for clay pipe fragments, but also going to an antique market or auctions that offer the chance of a trouvaille. Later you discover on long journeys how trilled you are to be able to buy an ethnographic smoking instrument, still warm from the user. All experiences, often at unexpected locations and with special people. Don Duco writes in a series of posts on Facebook and the website of the Amsterdam Pipe Museum diary fragments with memories from the past fifty years. This gives the museum collector a human face. Follow the episodes in this true "soap" for the next 50 weeks. Note the title Diary fragment in Facebook or go on our website to the museum section where this series will eventually be listed in full.
PermalinkPipe Museum’s fiftieth anniversary
1 October 2019
The discovery of a large number of clay pipes on 1 October 1969 was the formal start of our museum. This find on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam is today exactly half a century ago. How appropriate that the museum is now located within walking distance on the Prinsengracht. A lot has changed in those fifty years. The modest private collection became a registered museum with a versatile collection of smoking utensils in which almost all cultures of the world are represented. In short, the museum offers the worldwide culture of smoking. In the coming year we celebrate this milestone with a series of special events that expose our work.
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