Featured Early 20th Century Opium Raids-Up in smoke.

Here's a few old photos of police with the spoils of early 20th century opium den raids.The top one's San Francisco,the lower is Hawaii.It's quite a collection,and a hellacious amount of collectible money in todays market.

 

may not be the cream of the crop.....but authenticity is beyond reproach ...

to bad u can't see the sign in the upper right....that's the kicker !

 

Yep,probably not a lot of jade,ebony or silver in this group,but who knows ? The Sign-'All Persons Prohibited from Conversations....', prison yard maybe.

 

I have this 78 rpm record in my collection. A light hearted warning that this sort of dream this fruitless fantasy.

 

Sounds like a great dream,at least the Queen of Sheba part ! It's actually a pretty mild journey compared to todays nuclear-strength corporate FDA drugs like fentanyl.
....government 'weaponization' - old as Solomon & Sheba.

 

Is this part of your collection, @bosko69 ? If not, whose is it?

 

Figtree-No,it's featured in an article in Collectors Weekly by Lisa Hix titled- 'How Collecting Opium Antiques Turned Me Into an Opium Addict'.Here's the link-https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/journey-into-the-opium-underworld/

 

Thank you!

 

My pleasure.

 

I just read it... it's a fascinating interview. Thanks again for the link!

 

Wild stuff! I will surely be looking for opium accessories from now on! Thanks for the article @bosko69 !
Every W. Somerset Maugham story has an opium den in it. These photos put it all in perspective.

 

we have several good threads on opium items here @stracci ........!!!

 

This area of collecting surely requires significant research!
It looks like there is a lot of confusion out there about pipes, and all the accessories.

 

naaahh, we got it pretty nailed down here......for the most part !



there are of course variations as it relates to country of origin....








and finesse of the set used.......

 

Here are five opium pipes I got several years ago from a guy in Naperville, Il. They are typical of the inexpensive but functional pipes used in U.S. opium dens of the time (as well as in low-end opium dens throughout China and Southeast Asia). No “jade, ebony or silver“ here, but even cheap ones had ivory at both ends, since ivory was the “plastic“ of the day.


The guy from Naperville said they all came from the same source. The paper tag on one of them says:

“Chinese Opium Pipe from Rev Winfrid Schmidt OSB [Order of Saint Benedict] –

Taken by Police of Des Moines, Iowa in Raid on "Den" pre-1900“


My research shows that St. Benedict's College was an all-men's campus established in 1858, and that Father Winfrid Schmidt occasionally donated items to the college's natural history museum pre 1900. Father Winfrid Schmidt died in 1911.


Not trying to sell anything here, but I have them included in a collection of antique opium items of that period listed on San Diego Craigslist if anyone wants to see all 24 photos.

 

Oh yeah, the other side of the tag:

 

a nice assortment....with history !!!

 

Great provenance,fascinating-workingmen's pipes. Paul W-I checked out yr collection on San Diego Craigslist-whoa !
May i ask how long you've been collecting ?
PS-Those 'dampers' aren't cheap.

 

I ordered a used copy of the book Opium Fiend: A 21st-Century Slave To a 19th-Century Addiction -- the memoir of Steven Martin, who was interviewed in that article. The book was published in 2012, and I managed to find a copy for a decent price. Earlier he wrote a book about opium collectibles. I don't intend to collect them, so I passed on that one.

 

There's a joke there....... but I'll pass on that one too..!