Interesting thread about meerschaum pipes on a non-pipe forum over at the Straight Razor Place.

The posting by mparker762 showing off a couple of his best colored pipes includes the darkened claw shown at right.

In a subsequent posting, he extols the virtues of using a coloring bowl:

As for coloring, a coloring bowl like the one shown with the Cavalier is really the secret. I've got three coloring bowls, a smooth meer, a pebbled meer (shown w/ Cavalier), and an XL briar coloring bowl made for me by Mike Butera after much hounding. AFAIK it's the only one in existence, and I use it for smoking my english tobaccos in my meerschaums.

With results like these, it is hard to argue with the man. One thing that I found particularly interesting was that the claws darkened up so much more so than the bowl. I would have imagined this to be the case with the shank but seems odd to me that the talons on the claw would be so dark given the path coloring must travel to reach that portion of the stone.

Anyone else have any great coloration samples to share? You've seen, mine, now show me yours!