While we are talking about colored meerschaum pipes... I figured I'd have to brag on MY Cottom's Choice pipe. Unfortunately, I wasn't eligible to participate in the Coloring Contest so I figured since I'm doing the work on the blog, I can brag a little bit. Does that make me a bad person? Mine is the rusticated pipe in the middle...

Jim Allison, previous owner of the Tobacco Barn, brought in a few more pipes to show off to show what is possible. Granted, all the pipes in this contest have been colored for only the past 6 months so it was great to see a few examples of some pipes that have been colored just a little bit longer. I've posted one before but here are two more:

I soooooo love this pipe... I might have to arrange for an "accident" to happen to get my hands on it<G>...

This one is similar to the one that we've shown before except it has the most amazing milk amber stem...

This album cover was posted recently on ClubStogie's pipe smoking forum. Thought it was kinda fun and should be spread far and wide!

Well, we'll get to that in a minute. All of us at the Tobacco Barn would like to thank all the customers who bought a Cottom's Choice pipe and in particular, those who participated in our Cottom's Choice Coloring Contest tonight!

In addition to entries here in the store, we also had a mail-in entry from a customer of ours in Japan. Unfortunately, we were unable to use his pictures in the main voting but he won a special award from the judges for having the pipe furthest away from the store.

Our entrants awaited anxiously for the results of Tom Cottom's inspection of the pipes. After discounting the pipes presented by two employees (the judge himself included) he moved on to those presented for consideration by our customers.

After careful consideration, he chose to award the top prize of the 2007 Cottom's Choice Coloring Contest to Steve Kerrigan of Silverado. Top honors were awarded to his smooth pipe for the overall job of coloring his pipe. As with some meerschaum, the majority of his bowl is starting out a slight purple shade, turning brown the closer it got to the rim. He got extra points for not having an darkly colored stem (a sure sign usually of a "hot" smoker) like some of the entries. Steve credits his coloring to just smoking it a lot with our Treasure Chest and Anniversary blends. An informal poll of other contestants was inconclusive if light aromatics did a better job than English or Virginia blends.

Steve opted to take a gift card as his  prize rather than selecting either smooth #49 or the rustic #50. The pipes were placed back into the pool of available pipes for purchase only to have the last remaining rusticated pipe get snapped up by one of the other customers who had been lusting after it in the case for the last few months.

Special thanks to all who participated and we look forward to seeing if we can convince Tom to design another annual pipe for 2008. Let's hope so as this was fun as people vied to claim the title of best colored Cottom's Choice pipe for 2007!

when you should be working. Actually, I found these while multi-tasking doing some SEO research (i.e. searching on various terms and seeing how we turn up) when I ran across these pictures on Flikr from jrmccl. It was quite fun to see what he thought of our meerschaum pipes...

I really should get my act together and post my photos from the Tenth Annual Northern California Pipe & Cigar Show...

That Meerschaum was, at one point in time, used for snow flakes in snow globes? Well it was! It appears that snow globes, which started over 100 years ago in Paris, have used porcelain, bone, sand, non-soluble soap or metal flakes as well as Meerschaum before they settled on the inevitable plastic chips they use today.

Doesn't have a lot to do with pipes but I'm sucker for anything new I learn about Meerschaum.

These little tidbits courtesy of icWales.

President Bush Vetoes SCHIP Expansion Bill For The Second Time

President George W. Bush on December 12th vetoed for the second time legislation aimed at expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) by $35 billion over five years exclusively funded by increases in the Federal excise tax rates on tobacco products, saying "our nation's goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage, not to move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage." 

President Bush had vetoed the original SCHIP bill on October 3rd, arguing that the $35 billion expansion is too costly, took the program too far from its original intent to help the poor, and would be a step toward federalizing healthcare. The US House on October 18th sustained the presidential veto in a 273-156 vote. In a bid to win over more Republicans, US House Democrats on October 24th proposed a new version of the SCHIP bill that retained the amount of expansion and funding source, but tightened eligibility rules, generally barring coverage to illegal immigrants, childless adults and children of families with incomes exceeding three times the poverty level. However, the revised measure secured a veto-proof margin only in the Democrat-controlled Senate, while House Republicans held enough of their members together to sustain a presidential veto. With only a few days left in the congressional session, it is not clear if Congress would schedule a veto override vote, which is expected to almost certainly fail (Politico.com 12/12).

Extension Expected to be Approved by Congress

As we are in constant contact with our federal lobbyists who have been closely monitoring this SCHIP issue, popular consensus, both public, from the media, and more private channels within the "Beltway," holds that a veto override vote will fail for there remains the lack of support to muster a two-thirds vote in the House of Representatives to override the president's veto.

At this point, as the current congressional extension (following the first failed veto override vote)  for SCHIP program expires December 14th, there will most likely be another extension to fund the program into 2008. 

As this issue continues becoming more contentious on Capitol Hill, we urge all of you to remain calm, but vigilant. At this time, it is not necessary to contact your Congressmen and urge them to oppose a veto override attempt, as there is not enough support to approve such a legislative attempt.

The current Congressional session adjourns Dec. 22.

After being nothing but a redirect to our meerschaum page, MeerschaumPipes.com has been reborn. Now, MeerschaumPipes.com will answer everyone's questions about meerschaum pipes.

We've got links addresses to retail stores near you carrying IK Meerschaum products, areas to learn about meerschaum, links to Meerschaum and pipe smoking forums and much more.

So go check it out: http://www.meerschaumpipes.com/.

Aside from the obvious disclaimer to make up front (my company imports meerschaum pipes and accessories from Turkey so you might think me biased), I would like to sing the praise of Meerschaum as a material for tobacco pipes.

I feel that a finely crafted piece of meerschaum stone can be the best possible material to use for fine tobacco pipes for any number of reasons. Below, you'll find a list of them (in no particular order):

• Meerschaum is lighter than briar in most cases. The nature of this particular material is that it is particularly light when compared to most stones or minerals after the water has been removed from it.
• Meerschaum is porous and acts as a filter, drawing tars and moisture out of the smoke before it reaches your mouth.
• Meerschaum is neutral and imparts no flavor to the tobacco like a briar pipe will. This allows you to get the true flavor of the particular blend you are smoking.
• Meerschaum will not burn like briar. Since you cannot catch a meerschaum pipe on fire, there is no need to build a cake of carbon around the bowl to protect it.
• You can safely smoke any number of different types of tobaccos (aromatics, English, Virginia, burley, etc) back to back without fear of muddling the cake with different flavors/aromas like you do with a briar pipe since you don't need a cake. I can safely smoke a bowl of Stokkebye's Luxury Bullseye Flake and a bowl of Cambridge back to back without having the aroma/flavor from one affect the other.
• You don't need to rest a Meerschaum Pipe between smokes. Because the stone absorbs and gives off liquid much quicker than briar and it also cools quicker, you don't need to let your pipe rest after smoking it. This means that you will need to keep fewer pipes in your quiver and you can still smoke as much as you'd like.
• Meerschaum gives you a cooler smoking experience. Because Meerschaum is a much better conduit for heat than briar (which actually is more of an insulator than conductor of heat), the heat drawn off the smoke contributes to a cooler smoke.

Anyone else have any reasons why they smoke Meerschaum pipes? If so, please send us a comment using the links below...