I thought I’d squeeze in another post before heading out for a late-summer camping trip before back-to-school activities take over.

This no-name Oom Paul pipe came to me in a recent auction lot purchase (second row from the bottom, centre column in the pic). It was in pretty good shape when it arrived. Compared to many pipes in the lot, this one had not seen a great deal of use. There was a light cake in the bowl, and only a small amount of oxidation on the stem. Even the original stinger was intact. The only real issue was a scraped up rim; it looked almost as if someone had attempted to clean tars from the rim with a dull knife, and had taken off more rim than tars.

After reaming what little cake there was in the bowl and confirming that the briar was in very good shape inside…