Blog by Steve Laug

I picked this old Royden Meer-Tone up in a sale on EBay where a friend wanted the tobacco pouch that came with it. I won the bid and the result was he got the pouch and I got to keep this unique little pipe. It is different than any I have seen. I have done some research trying to find information on it and cannot find much at all. I have seen several on EBay that are unsmoked, some on Etsy that are also unsmoked, one even in a box. But there is not any information on the manufacturer that I can find. Anyone know anything about this brand and maker? Let us know.

The stem is a yellow nylon, the bowl is a white plastic (maybe Bakelite) and the lining of the bowl is a meerschaum cup inserted into the bowl and drilled on the side like a regular pipe. The meer cup is fit tight to the bottom of the bowl with no airspace between it and the bottom of the bowl. When it arrived the meer was dirty – possibly smoked just a few times as the bottom of the bowl was still clean. The top half of the bowl and the rim were darkened. The shank had a fine crack in it.

I used 1500 grit micromesh to clean up the rim of the insert and the outer edge of the bowl. I also used the micromesh to polish the plastic bowl that the insert sat in. There were rub marks and some scratches that the micromesh took care of. The nylon stem was dirty on the inside and stained with tobacco oils. I cleaned that with some alcohol on pipe cleaners and a shank brush until it was clean. The inside of the shank was also dirty and I cleaned it as well. I repaired the crack in the shank with a little superglue and then banded the shank with a pressure fit nickel band. The stem had tooth marks (fortunately not deep). I am not sure about heating a nylon stem to raise the marks so in this case I sanded them with 240 grit sandpaper until they were gone. I used 400 and 600 grit wet dry (you probably have gotten the pattern by this point in my stem refurbishing) and then used micromesh pads 1500-12,000 grit. I find that the 8000 and the 12,000 add a noticeable shine to the stem.

The pictures below give you a good idea of what the pipe looks like. It is a small pipe – roughly 5 inches in length.