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No tobacco has ever passed through this bowl.
The shank is stamped MORRIS REAL BRIAR. The pipe is a straight billiard, finished in a red rustic stain, fitted with a metal band at the shank-stem joint and a black vulcanite saddle stem cut to a fishtail bit. No filter is fitted.
Bowl: briar
Stem: vulcanite
Mouthpiece: fishtail
Filter: none
Stamped: \"Morris Real Briar\"
The billiard is the reference shape against which most other bowls are measured: a cylindrical bowl set at a right angle to a straight shank, a flat heel, and a rim cut parallel to the base so the pipe stands upright on its own without a rack. Sibling shapes bend the shank, taper the bowl into a cone, or stretch the shank out into a longer stem, but the billiard itself is the plain, load-bearing form a maker returns to when the point is proportion rather than a gimmick. Held in the hand it sits square and balanced.
A saddle stem is cut with a step down from the diameter of the shank to a narrower mouthpiece, rather than tapering smoothly from one into the other - the shoulder is visible where the vulcanite steps in. The bit ends in a fishtail: the slot at the button flares into two shallow wings instead of a single round bore, spreading the draw across a wider slit, a common factory cut on stems of this kind. The metal band sits at the join between shank and stem, a fitting used across the trade to reinforce that joint against the stress of repeated insertion and removal, and to finish the seam where two materials meet.
Vulcanite is rubber hardened with sulfur, the material most stems were cut from before acrylic became common. It takes a fine polish and holds a sharp edge at the button, and over years of handling and light exposure it is prone to oxidizing to a dull brown or green if left unprotected - a known trait of the material itself, not a defect specific to any one pipe.
Rustication is a worked surface: the smooth outer face of the briar is cut away in an irregular pattern, leaving a rough, low-relief texture rather than a polished plane, and it is stained afterward. Here the stain is a red tone deep enough to sit in the grooves and pale where the ridges catch the light. A rusticated bowl trades the display of straight or flame grain for texture; the wood is not shown bare, and no grain claim is made here beyond what the finish itself allows a buyer to see in the photographs.
THE MARKS
- Stamped on the shank: MORRIS REAL BRIAR
No other stamping, hallmark, or shape number is reported on this pipe.
Condition: unsmoked. No cake in the chamber; the briar inside is bare. No tooth marks or chatter on the stem. No fills, cracks, or repairs seen. Rim and rustication show no wear consistent with use.
THE MEASUREMENTS
Length 140mm (5.5in) - bowl height 50mm (2.0in) - bowl width 35mm (1.4in) - chamber diameter 20mm (0.8in) - chamber depth 49mm (1.9in) - weight 41g (1.4oz)
Ships from the Faridunhill / Pipe Collectors Encyclopedia archive. Worldwide shipping and professional sanitation on every estate pipe.
SKU: 452
