Ok, so another song reference you think to yourself... Will it ever stop? Probably, but not just yet!

Well, perhaps the title is just a little wrong. It should actually be Working in a Meerschaum Mine... Just digging up a litle of the White Lady (aka White Gold).

The manner in which these hardy souls work is not much different than during meerschaum mining since the late 1800s. They use a small, single sided pickaxe and haul the day's find using a rope to attach to a bucket and hoist up manually. The only change since then is the use of a carbide lamp to put out the most light with a device that doesn't smoke or eat up too much available oxygen, unlike the pair of nuckleheads below.

Ok, so perhaps Tom and I weren't working so much as getting in the miner's way. We clambered down all 20 feet of the 4 foot long by 2.5 foot wide shaft with the guidance of the eldest miner of the group. As miners dig further down, they carve foot and elbow holds in the sides of the shaft. This is only for more shallow shafts like this one. The deeper shafts, which usually deliver much better and bigger meerschaum will use powered hoists or winches to move the miners and gear down and up. Deeper is better since the mineral that makes up Meerchaum gets compressed and and better cured the longer and deeper it has been in the ground. Surface stone is usually the worst and is not used in any quality products. Even stones mined at the level we were at would only be used for mini-pipes and "domestic production" (stuff that gets sold to other Turkish businessmen for sale at tourists at Istanbul's Grand Bazaar or other tourist oriented locations.

It is very interesting to watch them work and to learn more about the process while we were here in Turkey. This mine is located in a section of the 50  square mile area in all of Turkey where meerschaum can be found. The only other locations in the world are some lesser quality deposits found in South Africa and North America.

The miner's quickly determine the quality of the stone by feeling it and rapping it against the metal part of the pickaxe. They would be looking to see if it holds together when or if it cracks or falls off. This would indicate it is bad. Other tests we learned for good meerschaum is to shave it with a blade, by smell, sound as well as taste. Nothing weirder than seeing a bunch of grown men standing around putting the tip of their tongues to a rock (no, not all at the same time).

During the winter months, very few miners will work. Not so much that the mines get too cold in the winter. Just the opposite. The mines stay at a steady temperature all year round with the temperature dependant upon the depth. The big problem for the miners is they work up a big sweat down there swinging their pick and moving lose dirt and meerschaum nuggets up to the surface so when they go up to eat or perform other bodily functions, it is too easy to get pneumonia. Thankfully for us, it was a pretty nice day. The miner in the adjacent photograph is carrrying away the days's loot.

As you look out across the horizon, you see many, many rolling hillocks that in this area are a dead give-away that you are in mining country.

Looking at the landscape at right, you'll find plenty of mine "tailings", all the junk pulled out of the mine shaft that wasn't good quality meerschaum or miner. If you look at the top left, you'll see a white blob that is a plastic tarp covering hoist machinery at a mine shaft that is sunk down 50 meters (about 150 feet).

Unfortunately, although they are supposed to fill a mine back in when they have finished with it, not al the miners do so. Between where the above picture was taken and the working mine in the background there are most likely 3 open mineshafts.

In some cases the miners will go back to mines used by those who dug back around the turn of the last century as the miners of the time were only interested in BIG pieces for export to Austria. You see at the time, the only meerschaum carving was being done in Austria. Now of course, Turkey considers meerschaum a natural resource worth guarding (as well as providing jobs for artists in Turkey) so it can not be exported in it's raw state. it must be finished in some form or another. At least for block that is. They don't consider reformed meerschaum, which we only use in some of our Carve Your Own kits and in replacement calabash bowls. All of our pipes, unless mentioned otherwise are made from 100% natural block meerschaum from the outskirts Eskisehir.

Next up will be about our meeting with the Emin Brothers.

The purpose of this trip to Turkey has been not only to begin learning the importing business and to check up on our pipe orders but it is also to work out some new pipe prototypes.

One of the prototypes is to be a meerschaum equivalent to a Favorite of an unnamed American crooner. We are hoping to present the prototypes, along with all the associated collateral to the Italian briar manufacturer of this particular pipe to see if they would be willing to co-brand and co-market this pipe. Worse case, we'd like them to allow us to use the name of which I shouldn't speak here. This is planned to be a limited production run with no more than 1,000 pipes being constructed and each will be numbered.

The pipes have turned out so good that Tom wants to do a variant as a Tobacco-Barn.com and Member's Only Club exclusive called, get this, "Cottom's Choice". I'll give you more on this later.

As for B's Favorite, we've done 4 different prototypes, 1 being rusticated and 3 being smooth. The bottom one is our leading contender as it appears that the two gold rings with a black stem is a winner. We are still waffling on going with 2 gold rings or a single gold band spacer.

The second from the top has a 13mm stem which is more in keeping with the size of the shank/stem on the original B's Favorite and we hope to be the stem size of choice for this if it proves to be strong enough. Because of the length of the shank, we may need to go to 14mm stem just to be safe. We're still trying to decide which way to go with this. Being that it is a numbered pipe, there is no way to replace it if a shank is broken so purchasers will be more likely to take proper care of these pipes.

At left you will see the leading contender in the B's Favorite (at bottom) and the rusticated version (at top). You'll notice the rusticated version has a shorter shank which would be good for the Cottom's Choice limited edition pipes (more information below).

Below is the drill guy giving the first prototype B's Favorite pipe it's first blow, clearing out dust and wax after drilling.

Tom and the boys seem to be pretty happy with their work. The carver on the right does the majority of the drilling for the pipes and also did our Green Man prototypes. He is a very talented artist and does lots of different jobs in the shop to keep from getting bored by carving the same thing over and over again. He really excels in more intricate carving jobs.

Green Man prototypes are still getting made so don't have them to show. The first two of 4 styles (MegaGreen and GreenWoman) are looking good and would be full-head bowls while the other two (Trickster and Fritz) will be carved in relief on the front of the bowl, perhaps with leaves, snakes (or not) going back onto the bowl and the shank.

Other news: We met with Sevket (pronounced Shevket BTW and spelled Şevket) and his wife at his house today. Very hospitable and we purchased 3 signature pieces and ordered 10 medium mixtures of floral, 4 medium claws and 6 ring pipes (1 large, 5 small with 2 being calabash rings).

The bigger news is that we have negotiated an exclusive with him that we are the only people that will get Sevket ring and rotating calabash pipes. So, for the duration of this agreement, IK Meerschaum and Tobacco Barn will be the only places you can get new Sevket ring pipes and the newer calabash pipes with rotating caps.

Ok, as for the news of the totally new prototype that Tom is calling Cottom's Choice, here is the information:

• This is going to be a limited edition pipe only available at Tobacco-Barn.com and Tobacco Barn retail store(s). It will not be available to wholesalers and distributors.
• The intention is to make this an annual pipe with runs of 50 each year. We plan on starting with 25 as Tom thinks he can sell 20 within a month of getting them to the store. If we decide to go with one every year, or every few years, that will depend onn demand, however there is no commitment to go beyond that.
• Bowl is the same as on the Bing's Favorite only with a shorter shank (approximately 35mm). This will ease production concerns since doing bowls for one or the other would depend mainly on the stone size.
• As with the Bing's Favorite it will have a black stem with two gold rings however the stem will be straight instead of 1/8th bend like on the Bing's Favorite.
• Text on left side of shank will read "Cottom's Choice 2007"
• Text on right side of shank will read "Limited xx/50" where xx is sequential numbers
• Every 5th number in the series will be rusticated.
• Shank on rusticated pipes will include smooth text panels on left and right side to accommodate text above
• Will come in a fitted case with black leatherr and white satin lining.

By limiting this to in-house only sales, we can keep the cost down for our preferred and repeat customers since we don't have to build in additional costs since there will be no distributors or wholesalers that we need to get a profit out of. The estimate is that this pipe, with fitted case will try and keep the price under $100.

What do you guys think of that?

No, this isn't an old Bob Hope/Bing Crosby screwball comedy. No, this is all about a fun-filled trip to the surprisingly large and cosmopolitan town of Eskisehir, Turkey.

Myself and my travelling companions decided it best for newbies Tom and I talk the bus to get a better feel for the country of Turkey by taking the bus rather than the train.

Now, these weren't just your ordinary bus like you'd find sounth of the U.S. border in Baja. No sir, these were big old Mercedes buses in comfortable sets with a flight/drive attendant along to serve us tea, Nescafe, snacks and water.

We left Istanbul from the bus station on the European side of the city around 11:00 local time.

After purchasing our tickets, which was complicated by the fact that the folks behind the ticket counter were not understanding our attempts to speak, and I'm sure mangle, the Turkish word for reservations, we passed through the terminal to the bus staging area out back and was delighted to see the most modern camii (mosque) we'd seen so far on this trip. And trust me, we've seen quite a number. When people say that Turkey is a predominantly Muslim country, they aren't kidding. There are sizable mosques almost every 3rd to 5th block. Across the street from our hotel, between us and the Blue Mosque was a tiny one that, although lacking in square footage, made up for it with a tall primary building (obstructing part of the view of the Blue Mosque) and a minaret with loudspeakers for the call to prayers. This was helpful to get up on time as they went off at around 5:45 or so and were loud enough to wake me out of a dead sleep. But I digress...

On the way out of town, we stopped off the main highway and down a gorge to pick up somemore passengers. Then it was time to settle in for the drive to Eskisehir. But wait, we've got another stoop to make, this time at the Harem station on the Asian side of the country. For those of you in the know, Turkey is the only country that straddles both Europe and Asia. The Harem station is, it appears, right at the ferrry terminals as well as the Asian spur of the railroad. You've heard of the Orient Express? Well it stopped in Istanbul on the European side of the Bosphorous River.

While the bus stopped to take on passengers and to allow people to hit the tuvalet (toilet) I took advantage of the time to run over closer to the docks and get a picture of not only the Blue Mosque and Santa Sophia (left) and the newer, downtown portion of Istanbul. I was very impressed by the variety of public transportation available to all the residents of Istanbul, but also Eskisehir. I hustled back to the bus, so it wouldn't leave without me and spotted every network engineer's nightmare and had to stop and take a picture (below).

Yes, all those lines are exposed phone lines to all the various stalls and businesses around the station. Yikes!

This was to be the last stop for awhile so we sojourned on towards the midway point, which was basically just a roadside gas station with a restaurant and some shops attached. This view is looking out across the valley to the east from the back of the rest stop area. This is very spectacular scenery but it didn't last for long as we pulled out from the bus station, we found ourselvers headed towards a very dark, black cloud cover. you can see in the image at right part of a rental area available for use by those getting married or other celebrations that require a dance hall.

Given that things were getting progressively darker throughout the day enroute to Eskisehir, I don't have any more pictures for this part of the trip.

I keep thinking of the They Might Be Giants tune about the name change from Constantinople to the current name of Istanbul (I think based on a Cole Porter song).

Even old new york was once new amsterdam
Why they changed it i can't say
People just liked it better that way

So take me back to constantinople
No, you can't go back to constantinople
Been a long time gone, constantinople
Why did constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the turks

Istanbul (istanbul)

Tom and I made it here OK after spending a great deal of time in airplanes. We left LAX at 0730 PDT on Monday the 12th and arrived at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul at 1030 on Tuesday the 13th. With a 2 hour layover at JFK in NY, that amounts to about 14 hours in the air.

Don't have time for a full posting now but wanted to get some pictures up for those back home. Hope to have a few more posts put up tonight when we get to Eskişehir.

View of the sidestreet leading up to our hotel.

The main entrance to the Grand Bazaar, the world's largest covered market and perhaps the worlds first indoor mall.

A view looking down one of the streets in the Bazaar. If you look far enough down, you will see an archway that leads to the Old Bazaar.

A view down one of the major streets. This is the gold street. Many of the streets and sections in the Bazaar specialize in different types of items for sale.

Here we are in such a beautiful and romantic city and Jerry and Harris are stuck at a computer dealing with Ebay troubles caused by an employee getting "phished"...

Ok, many of you know how much I dislike cats but thought I would close out this posting with a picture of one of the hotel cats making itself comfortable in the hotel Lobby. This is a great place and I hope that we'll have a bit more time here when we return from Eskişehir later this week.

Type at you all soon! 

Sorry all for the lack of postings. Perhaps I was setting my sights too low to really keep this blog updated with just updates from the cigar side of the business. So, from this point on, you'll find something new here... Pipe Postings!

And, to launch things off, I'd like to give you a few little tidbits. The first is that come Monday, I'm off to Turkey with Tom from the store here to meet with our carvers and check on the status of our latest order. I'm very excited for this as this is a whole new expreience for me. I'm going to be learning at the feet of the master, Jerry who we bought the IK Meerschaum business from. I truly can't wait to see what we bring back. I'll try and make postings here documenting the trip.

 In them meantime, above is a picture of one of our more "interesting" pipes that we've got in the store now. Perhaps I'll find some better examples now that we are down to just three of these beauties. Enjoy!

On another note, found this great posting from TheNonist on his blog about the fine art of meerschaum carving. I would argue with him though, about the fact that pipe smoking is a dead art and that the only use for meerschaum pipes is for smoking stuff other than tobacco.

 Au contraire mon ami! Pipe smoking is becoming again, or at least as popular as any smoking habit will be due to the anti-smoking zealots sticking their noses... sorry, didn't mean to digress. Anyways, don't forget to check out his posting to see the fine work done by these old masters...