I am happy to see AJ back at his refurbishing work and writing about what he is working on. This pipe is particularly interesting in that it is a Disney Pipe. I have not seen much about these pipes and have enjoyed AJ’s work and write up. Thanks AJ for doing this and allowing us the pleasure of seeing the Disney pipe.

Greetings. When I first joined the PRF, a little over 18 months ago, there was a subject on the forum in which members could share with the other members what they thought was their dream pipe.

I was still rather green behind the ears when it came to brands, shapes and sizes so I didn’t reply in it at first. However, after a few months I found this article on Pipesmagazine.com:
http://pipesmagazine.com/blog/pipe-smokers-of-the-past/walt-disney-american-icon-inventor-of-pop-culture-pipe-smoker/ It was an interview with Brian Levine who explained about the fact that the Walt Disney Company sold pipes and pipe tobacco in the parks up until 1991/93.
This tickled me; the fact that the ‘wholesome WD Company’ sold tobacco and especially pipes with their logo on it was too good to be true. It was then that I decided a Walt Disney pipe would be my dream pipe.

So I shared this with my fellow Dutch pipe smokers on the PRF and explained that since I live in the Netherlands it would be an interesting challenge to try to acquire on for a reasonable price.

Thus my quest started and ended a mere three weeks later when I was not out bid on this eBay lot:

A tobacco pot with two pipes, the one on the left being a Disney pipe. The closing bid was $19.53 for the whole lot though my mood was a bit adjusted when I found out the shipping cost would be $42,-. Still, corrected to Euros it was a nice price for something so rare for a European.

When the pipe came it was very well packed and had survived the transit wonderfully. The other pipe was a Kaywoodie which I will write about in the future.

The first thing that struck me was that the pipe seemed to be only smoked a few times. The mouthpiece was oxidized through time and air but on the whole it was in good condition.

The inside of the bowl was lined with meerschaum, wetting a finger with spit and pressing it against the meerschaum I concluded it to be pressed – meerschaum instead of block meerschaum.

A rule of thumb (no pun intended :-)) is that when your wet finger sticks to the meerschaum it has a higher absorption rate and is thus most likely to be block-meerschaum. The pipe also confirmed the story from Levine that most of these pipes were basket-pipes stamped with the WD logo, though this one was of better quality than I expected.

First I cleaned the inside with 96% alcohol and pipe cleaners. They came out rather clean on the first go.

The soot and coal on the rim were rubbed off easily with a little spit and an old sock. And with 1500 grit sandpaper I smoothed the bowl a little, I decided to leave the brown spots on the meerschaum as I didn’t want to ruin the look of the pipe should the spots run deeper than I anticipated.

Then using the motor and abrasive wheels I removed the oxidation on the mouthpiece.
And with a needle file the hard to get oxidation near the tip. The picture is made just after the abrasive wheels.

The buffing was done with brown paste, followed by white, carnauba wax and a buffing on the fluffy wheel.