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Before briar, there was clay. Now referred to colloquially as "tavern pipes," these long-stemmed clay pieces were rendered most predominantly in Cutty and Belge forms and were a mainstay of European and Colonial American societies, especially throughout the 17th century. This was the heyday of the clay pipe trade before the popularity of snuff and the future conflict between Europe and America led to its decline in the early 1700s.
Because of clay's delicate composition, tavern pipes weren't considered long-lasting commodities like briar pipes today. As such, it's rare to find whole, unbroken clay pipes of any considerable vintage, and most of the pieces uncovered from the industry's peak in the 1700s consist now of only fragments, the stems of most snapped off and the bowls fractured beyond recognition. However, in Monte Cristi Bay, off the coast of the Dominican Republic, a hidden, unadulterated collection lay dormant and preserved in the sea for centuries before its discovery and excavation between 1991 and 2005.
Roughly half a mile from shore, and 14 feet under the surface of the Caribbean Sea, a Dutch merchant ship lies in a bed of seagrass, where it's remained since its final journey in the mid-1600s. Dubbed the "Pipe Wreck" because of its unique freight, the vessel was originally transporting clay pipes from Northern Europe to the Americas before succumbing to what appears to have been an explosion and fire, leading to the ship's demise. Thankfully, though, its over 300-year-old cargo has remained intact, resulting in a total discovery of roughly 10,000 wholly preserved clay pipes.
Unlike most of the clay pipes exhumed in archaeological digs, these unsmoked pieces from the Monte Cristi "Pipe Wreck" remained (for the most part) completely intact, stems and all, having never arrived at their final destination as trade goods for European-American colonials and Native Americans. It's a find unlike any other and is one of the largest conglomerates of antique clay pipes ever discovered, unique in the fact that these thousands of pipes still retain their intended potential — a massive collection of lost stock that never found its way to pipesmokers' hands.
Pipes travel much differently today. At any given moment, thousands of pipes are traveling around the globe, destined to arrive in the hands of eager recipients. Many are transported by mail in small batches, but outside of factory warehouses, collections of thousands of pipes are few and far between. Every so often, though, special events like the Chicagoland Pipe Show beckon pipes to meet in one centralized location, the palpable possibility of future smokes filling the showroom as collectors and hobbyists peruse the booths for fresh briars.
Imagine being able to somehow preserve this potential for hundreds of years, encasing the dormant energy of these pipes like a mosquito in amber. The Monte Cristi "Pipe Wreck" is, in a way, a static encapsulation of this budding probability. The pieces themselves represent never-realized potential, something like photographic negatives, catalyzing the possibilities of 10,000 smokes that never were.
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Comments
Interested
Interesting!
Are the recovered pipes still smokable? Or has the centuries of seawater permeating the clay less than desirable?
Cool story. Are they in a museum in the USA? If so it would be really neat to see. No new pipe, no radio, no tv....lots of disappointed people I'm sure.
Will these be for sale anywhere?
Excellent article. Very interesting. It would be neat if the pipes were in a museum. Thank you for this article.
Interesting that no mention is made of where the pipes are now. In a museum, perhaps? Maybe a few, but what use would a museum have for 10,000 pipes? Perhaps still at the bottom of the sea, unable to be moved for various legal or bureaucratic reasons? Or is this a Smokingpipes tease? Do you already have them in a warehouse of your own, preparing them for sale? C’mon, the question of where the pipes are now is so obvious that its absence is suspicious.
Hi, All! I'm glad to see everyone has enjoyed reading about the Monti Cristi pipe wreck! From the research that I've done, I found that they did excavate about 2,000 clay pipes from the wreckage, but I haven't found any information regarding their whereabouts now. I'd love to say that SmokingPipes is storing them here in our warehouse, but that just wouldn't be true! So, the mystery continues...
Great article, and if you'll pardon the pun, fire's the imagination...