Tobacco pipe with flexible stem
August 2024
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when smoking from pipes with long stems was still common, pipes with a flexible stem were created. They weren't really practical. A fixed stem provides support so that you can hold the mouthpiece between your teeth, while you can support the pipe bowl with one hand. A flexible stem seems to be the ultimate in comfort, but provides no support between mouthpiece and pipe. In fact, you can't take the mouthpiece out of your mouth for a while without it falling down quite a bit. Interesting to know that such a flexible stem was made of an iron spring, covered on the outside with chamois leather and then braided with horse hair, sometimes also shiny silk thread. This example is a bit more luxurious because here the external cover of the stem is made of rings of turned buffalo horn that guarantee both movability and durability. Unfortunately, the moisture in the smoke often had a destructive effect on the iron core, which gradually rusted and made the stem rigid, until it broke in one place and the fun was over. It is therefore not surprising that not many of these flexible stems have been preserved in good condition. This pipe has a bowl in so-called Hungarian shape, high and cylindrical, made of meerschaum. The elegance of this smoking pipe is underlined by a silver hinged cover and ditto cuff mounting. Such pipes were smoked in bourgeois circles around the 1830’s.
Amsterdam Pipe Museum APM 24.764
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