[Disclaimer: All knowledge of opium, its history, and the processes of smoking it were gained through legitimate research. My procuring of the pipes is not in any way indicative of its use. Do not do illegal drugs] Hey everyone! It's been a while since my last post, but I just couldn't resist bragging about my newest little find. Perhaps about a year ago I picked up what was labeled an 'oriental opium pipe' by my local antiques shop. There is much contention around these as to whether they constitute as a genuine opium pipe or a traditional Kiseru tobacco pipe. I can say that I did genuinely clean the opium latex out of the bowl and Rau [stem] myself, and the remarkably long Rau is indicative of an opium pipe, as the opium must be constantly heated over a lamp in order to evaporate to give the desired effect. As lovely as it is, I found the Hizara [bowl] and Kuchimoto [lip] both to be undesirably drab, even crude in certain places. Well thankfully just yesterday I managed to procure a beautiful and functional replacement This Kiseru has some gorgeous embellishments on the Kuchimoto and the Hizara, which I will show in more detail both before and after polishing: [Before] [After] As you may see, the Naginata wielding soldier on the Hizara was squashed before I bought it, which is truly an awful shame. I replaced the Rau of the Kiseru with that of the opium pipe, because not only do I prefer it, but the Kiseru was unfortunately cracked and rotted. I've still been unable to get rid of the smell of tobacco and rotting wood, which I guess is to be expected. Any thoughts and opinions are welcome. Do you think I've slaughtered this piece by affixing it to a new stem? Would anyone happen to be able to approximate the date of the pieces? Could anyone recommend to me a way to clean out the pipe? I've had absolutely no luck with everything from boiling it to running vinegar through it, and still, the smell and little bits of wood remain. Could anyone recommend a process by which I could touch up the Hizara? As you can see I've tried sanding and polishing, but I'm afraid of doing more harm than good.
@HailCthulhu No way of fixing the damage without knowing what metals are involved.Sanding and polishing probably did more harm than good.
to me this is a tobacco pipe....no matter what you think you scraped out of the bowl. but that's just MHO...
It had some nice metal work on it, whatever it is. I use smoked fish and cheese.(LOL) For de-skunking, have you tried baking soda yet?
