Found a Clay Pipe when swimming

[RCO]

bit of a heat wave here so decided to go swimming perhaps for the last time this year on monday and when i went off the dock immediately saw this item .

its obviously some sort or part of a clay pipe , not really familiar with them. so unsure of exact age or anything about it . the spot where i found it has been used for some time , its near a main town and park area , alot of different uses over the years so hard to say who used this and when

 

[Len]

Hi RCO,

Some pipes have maker's marks. Don't be timid about cleaning it. Dating- the smaller the stem hole the more modern it is. Generally, ceramic pipe usage died out after the Civil War. Nice find. Congrats on your keen observation.

 

[DeepSeaDan]

Hi RCO,

Some pipes have maker's marks. Don't be timid about cleaning it. Dating- the smaller the stem hole the more modern it is. Generally, ceramic pipe usage died out after the Civil War. Nice find. Congrats on your keen observation.

"Dating- the smaller the stem hole the more modern it is" - that's an interesting observation, one I have not heard before. I have a lot of old clay pipes, but none with a bore-hole the size of the one RCO found.

Congrats on the keen eye & very old pipe find, RCO!

 

[Len]

Hey Dan,
"You heard it here first." ..The inverse is also true.--The larger the draft hole the older the pipe is. --We grew a lot of tobacco here in CT, back to the 1600s. Now mostly just for cigar wrappers. --Len

 

[RCO]

"Dating- the smaller the stem hole the more modern it is" - that's an interesting observation, one I have not heard before. I have a lot of old clay pipes, but none with a bore-hole the size of the one RCO found.

Congrats on the keen eye & very old pipe find, RCO!

i have no idea how old it is , i'd imagine its been there for a while , the site has been used for so many different things from a saw mill to a restaurant , to a park ,

its the first clay pipe i've found

 

[RCO]

Hi RCO,

Some pipes have maker's marks. Don't be timid about cleaning it. Dating- the smaller the stem hole the more modern it is. Generally, ceramic pipe usage died out after the Civil War. Nice find. Congrats on your keen observation.

pretty sure there is no mark on , imagine you could clean it more if you wanted to , i haven't really tried yet

 

[Len]

Yo! RCO,

The French + English both used these pipes. Later, the Native-Ams. did too. However, yours has a fairly narrow diameter hole. So, a general guess would be the first half of the 1800s.

 

[RCO]

Yo! RCO,

The French + English both used these pipes. Later, the Native-Ams. did too. However, yours has a fairly narrow diameter hole. So, a general guess would be the first half of the 1800s.

1800's ? that be pretty early for that area as it wasn't even really a town yet by then although lake has been there forever so its possible people used that park area before the town site was developed

 

[Len]

"Smoke 'em if you got 'em." knows no municipal boundaries in the early days. --Often, a tavern would be an early outpost for weary travelers in remote areas. Usually when you went through the door a pipe lay there so you could light up and relax a bit. So, one would break off a piece of the pipe to get a fresh area of stem. Hence, there are a lot of pieces and their bowls around...