Collecting Antique Meerschaum Pipes: Miniature to Majestic Sculpture, 1850-1925 is an illustrated guide to the smoking utensils made of a mineral that has been used since at least the early 1700s and which is, today, still a popular material. In the last decade, a surge in interest in tobacco collectibles has already spawned many books on cigarette lighters, cigar-box labels, and snuff boxes and bottles. This book now comes at a time when antique meerschaums are taking center stage, and collecting them is like buying blue-chip stocks. Ben Rapaport is one of the few internationally recognized...

Here is the first illustrated retrospective of the storied evolution and continental acceptance of the porcelain pipe. The history of these beautiful pipes is covered in over 145 brilliant photos and detailed, informative text, from their revolutionary introduction as early objets d'art to their eventual eclipse as twentieth century kitsch. While the history, manufacture, and use of clay, meerschaum, and briar tobacco pipes have been thoroughly documented, the authors have now crafted a chronicle about porcelain tobacco pipes. This pipe originated with an eighteenth-century, European design...