Pipe with heel, double-cone bowl, showing the Cologne maker's initials MP, around 1680/90

No. 7/1995, p. 2-20
Ruud Stam: Pipes made by a pipemaker "M.P." found in Cologne

Cologne is one of the oldest pipemaking centres in Germany, although so far we only know this from documentary evidence. In 1989, Cologne Museum purchased a collection of about 200 clay-pipe bowls and stems which the owner said he found all together in a small bread oven. This statement is supported by the fact that many of the pipes have been fired at too high a temperature and thus may all belong to one single firing. The pipe bowls are of double conical and funnel-shaped types and can be dated at around 1680. The different ornamentations permit the pipes to be subdivided into ten groups. None of the pipes bear a mark, but pipes belonging to groups II, IV and IX bear the initials "M.P." on the pipe bowl. So far it has not been possible to assign the pipes to any of the known Cologne pipemakers. The pipes have rather a low quality of finish, although they are closely comparable in design to the typical pipes made internationally around 1680.
Altogether 24 different models of pipes can be recognised. These would have required the same number of pipe moulds, suggesting a relatively large pipemaker's workshop. The author estimates that fourteen people were employed by the pipemaker "M.P."

Clay pipes made by the Cologne pipe maker "MP" around 1680/90

No. 7/1995, p. 20 f.
Rüdiger Articus: An old record of a clay-pipe find

A contemporary archaeological report on items found during the building of a new theatre in Wismar in 1841 mentions several clay pipes. The somewhat meagre description of the pipes, which bear the mark "EB", and comparison of the description with similar finds from other towns in northern Germany permit them to be dated as just before 1700.

No. 7/1995, p. 22-28
Magret Karras: Westerwald products amongst clay-pipe fragments found at Ahaus

Most of the clay-pipe fragments found during the last 20 years at Ahaus are from the Netherlands. However, a few originate in the Westerwald, Germany. Five of these bear the words "PETER/DORNI". These, like another pipe fragment marked "IOHANNES/KEISER", belong to the last third of the 18th century. Another pipe, probably about the same age, is marked "K" and may have been made by the Dorn brothers of Grenzhausen.

Heelless pipe made by Johannes Keiser, Höhr, last third of 18th century

A pipe marked "ISER" with a crown (above) and a star (below) is older, i.e. from the first half of the 18th century. Another pipe marked with "K" and a Gouda coat-of-arms (on the side of the spur) is probably from the 19th century. These pipes are closely comparable to those found by M. Kügler in the pipe-making towns of Höhr and Grenzhausen, and help to document the distribution of Westerwald clay pipes.

Fired clay mould for a stub-stemmed pipe with a ribbedbowl, Lesum, N. Germany, second half of 18th century

No. 7/1995, p. 29 ff.
Horst Gnettner: Clay-pipe production at Lesum

A pottery and faience factory belonging to Johann Christoph Vielstich existed in Lesum near Bremen in the then Electorate of Hannover from 1758 until 1800. In 1982 during building work on the site of Vielstich's factory, two halves of two pipe-bowl moulds made of clay were found, but no clay-pipe fragments. It is possible that these moulds were not used for actually producing clay pipes but for making the plaster moulds in which the pipe bowls were made. During this period a similar technique was used in porcelain manufacture.

No. 7/1995, p. 31 ff.
Rüdiger Articus: A so far unknown clay-pipe factory at Marne in the district of Dithmarschen

The clay-pipe factory at Marne existed only a very short time. It was founded early in 1813 by the businessman and spice trader Otto Friedrich Frers, but was taken over in the summer of 1814 by one of his employees. This man, whose name is not known, moved the factory in the same year to Itzehoe; thus clay pipes were only produced at Marne for about a year. No examples of the products of the Marne factory have been found. Historical documents provide evidence of Itzehoe's first pipe factory being established in 1814 by a certain Johann Göbel. The author suggests that this was the nameless person mentioned above.

No. 7/1995, p. 33-38
Olaf Rennebeck: "So much tobacco smoke that one can hardly see three paces."

The author reports from a description of rural life published in 1858 that, in the so-called "Marsch" villages between the Elbe and Weser estuaries, it was a tradition at family get-togethers to provide tobacco and clay pipes for the guests. This is corroborated by two invoices, one dated 1784 and the other about 1810. They list goods supplied by tradesmen for two weddings; both include a large quantity of tobacco, and the older invoice also lists clay pipes.

No. 7/1995, p. 38-44
Rüdiger Articus: "How careless smoking of tobacco could be combatted."

In the 17th and 18th centuries, many sovereigns tried to combat the danger of fire posed by lighted tobacco pipes by imposing severe penalties - even death - for the careless use of pipes.

No. 7/1995, p. 44-49
Walter Morgenroth: Clay pipes from East Friesland for Hannover smokers in the Biedermeier period (early 19th century)

In 1816 Conrad Bernhard Meyer and a businessman named G. Kannegiesser founded a clay-pipe factory in Aurich. It is reported that two years later (1818) forty people were employed there and produced 12,000 gross (1,728,000) pipes per year; in 1824 about 75 people worked in the factory. Pipes found in Aurich that can be shown to have been made in Meyer's factory display an egg-shaped bowl typical of that period. Some of the marks have so far not been recorded; it is inferred that, since most of the pipes were sold in the Netherlands, Gouda marks were the most frequently used. However, in spite of official market-protection measures (less tax on locally made pipes), the factory could not hold out against persistent competition and had to close in 1839.

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No. 7/1995, p. 50-63
Ekkehard Reiff: Clay-pipe finds in the Harz Mountains. A preliminary report

The author describes a small selection of the many pipes that have been found in the seven towns of the Oberharz (the upper part of the Harz Mountains), which have been mining towns for centuries. The clay pipes range in age from the last third of the 17th century to the beginning of the 20th century. Many of them are imports from the Netherlands; one of these bears a portrait of William IV of Orange (the "Statthalter" of the Netherlands from 1747-1751) and his wife. Some of the pipes which bear inscriptions honouring the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg were possibly made in the Westerwald, Uslar, or Holzminden. Other pipes with motives relating to mining and bearing the name "KNECHT", either as a mark or on the stem, were probably made in a German town. Pipemakers with this name are recorded from Grossalmerode between 1729 and 1855.

Finally, the author explains that the continuous drop in popularity of clay-pipe smoking in the 19th century is reflected in the finds. Tobacco was grown at that time on the western and northwestern sides of the Harz Mountains and was smoked by the inhabitants of the Oberharz mining towns predominantly in porcelain pipes or as cigarettes or cigars.

No. 7/1995, p. 63 f.
Rüdiger Articus: Clay pipes from an early 17th century wreck

In 1994, the wreck of a 17th century ship was found buried in the dike just west of Uelvesbüll in North Friesland. Currently the wreck is undergoing conservation at Husum. Among the items found in the wreck were four clay pipes. One of them was in a wooden pipe-case bearing a monogram, the owner's mark, and the inscription "Ao 16..".

No. 7/1995, p. 65-69
Martin Kügler: Report on the 8th meeting of the German Society for Clay-Pipe Research held in Mannheim on 30 April and 1 May 1994

The Society was invited by the Archaeological Collections Section of the Reiss Museum, Mannheim, to hold its 8th annual meeting there. Altogether 26 participants attended. I. Jensen, F. Teutsch, L. Huber, H. Maier, H. G. Rein and K. Sarri gave papers on clay-pipe making documented in the region around Mannheim, Heidelberg, and Frankenthal, where it began in 1650. A special exhibition called "Smoking and snuff-taking in the Palatine Electorate and elsewhere" put together by I. Jensen and K. W. Beinhauer showed a large range of products from the region. Other papers dealt with the following topics: The development of the shape of clay-pipe bowls (W. Morgenroth), the Schum wooden-pipe factory in Bad König (W. Stolle), and the organisation of the clay-pipe makers in Westerwald during the 3rd Reich (R. Stam). Excursions visited the Erkenbert Museum in Frankenthal, the Tobacco Museum in Hockenheim and a tobacco grower in Mannheim-Seckenheim.