by Kenneth Lieblich

I need your help! I’m reaching out to the collective, worldwide pipe community to seek information on an old and mysterious pipe. This pipe came into my possession in a lot of other pipes – and this one wasn’t even the focus of the lot. I found it at the bottom of the bag of pipes, looking quite sorry and forlorn. As the photos show, it is old, worn, rusted, and broken in two.

So, let me tell you what little I know about it. This pipe is a cutty shape, as you can see. As described in Pipedia, the cutty has a ‘canted tulip shaped bowl’. It also has an ‘ornamental spur, a small bit of material extending from beneath the bowl’. The pipe is definitely made of iron – probably cast iron or wrought iron, though I am certainly not a ferrous expert. I can tell that it is iron because it is very heavy, strongly magnetic, and obviously rusted. In fact, there is a considerable accretion of rust. I’m not at all sure what other accoutrements this pipe might have had. Did it have some sort of mouthpiece? Did it have a bowl insert? Someone asked me if this might have been some sort of mould for making clay pipes or something similar, but I don’t see that as being likely. Perhaps you know better.

The approximate dimensions of the pipe are as follows: length 6 in. (153 mm); height 1⅔ in. (43 mm); bowl length 1¼ in. (31 mm); bowl width ⅞ in. (21 mm); shank diameter ¼ in. (7 mm). The weight of the pipe is 2¾ oz. (78 g). That’s a remarkable weight for such a slender pipe.

I have done a lot of searching, in books and online, and I can’t find anything substantial about this sort of pipe. I have found mention of old metal tobacco pipes – including ones from hundreds of years ago – but only minor references to iron tobacco pipes and very little that would correlate with this pipe specifically. The one pipe I found that was vaguely similar to mine is in the photo below. It came from a 2019 auction of American furniture and decorative arts in Massachusetts and the description read,

Wrought Iron Tobacco Pipe, 18th century, with straight tapering stem and curved bowl, lg. 10 in. The property of Bill McKeever. Estimate $300-500.

Another clue comes from a 1914 book entitled, The Social History of Smoking, by Scottish scholar, George Apperson. In it, Apperson recalls a scene from Sir Walter Scott’s novel, The Heart of Midlothian, in which Duncan of Knockdunder was smoking his ‘short tobacco-pipe made of iron’. Apperson relates,

Knockdunder’s pipe, according to Scott, was made of iron. This was an infrequent material for tobacco-pipes, but there are a few examples in museums. In the Belfast Museum there is a cast iron tobacco-pipe about eighteen inches long. With it are shown another, very short, also of cast iron, the bowl of a brass pipe, and a pipe, about six inches in length, made of sheet iron.

Sadly, the book came with no photos of said pipe. Furthermore, I could find no examples online of iron pipes in any museum of British-occupied Ireland. Finally, I found another reference to a cast iron pipe at a museum in the Bailiwick of Jersey, one of the Channel Islands. Of course – just my luck – there was a brief description, but no photo! Here is that description:

I asked both Steve and Ben Rapaport if they knew anything about my pipe. They didn’t, but Ben recommended that I contact the Amsterdam Pipe Museum. I did – and I have received precisely zero response. Crickets and tumbleweeds. I mention this only in the remote hope that someone draws the museum’s attention to this and that they respond to my query.

So, with all of that in mind, do you know anything about this pipe? Or about iron smoking pipes in general? Have you seen something like this before? Is this a maritime artefact? Are you aware of any resources that could provide more information? Please send me an email or drop a comment below.

I hope you enjoyed learning what scant information I have on this iron cutty and I hope you can help me learn more. If you are interested in more of my work, please follow me here on Steve’s website or send me an email at kenneth@knightsofthepipe.com. Thank you very much for reading and, as always, I welcome and encourage your comments.