Old NYT articles on meerschaum pipes

I thought this article from the NYT archives, dated 1911 was fascinating just for the fact that with our hobby, what was sound advice and information is still just as pertinant today.

Not to mention the fact you had an article about pipe smoking in the newspaper!

COLOR MEERSCHAUM PIPES BY MACHINERY; Smoke a Dozen at Once, and Do It Better Than a Tobacco Lover Could.
December 24, 1911, Sunday

Section: Cable News Wireless and Sporting Sections, Page C12, 974 words

” There used to be a time,” sighed the cigar store man, “when I made a substantial addition to my income coloring meerschaum pipes for folk who were too lazy or ignorant of how to do it for themselves, but as in the case of many other industries manual labor, if you can call smoking manual labor, has had to give way before the march of machinery.

The article coninues to provide some advice on coloring meers from a guy who smoked meers for a living - the guy actually made money for smoking a pipe! I know what I want to do for my second career.

Then there is also this article about a Russian czar, Nicholas I, who had a large diamond studded meer made to give as a gift. The recipient was worried about how long it would take to color the meer - he figured five years, so the czar ordered had it sent to the guard house to be smoked round the clock for two weeks.

The “order of the day” read:

Under pain of the knout, none shall smoke any other pipe but this. All the necessary tobacco shall be supplied. At the end of the fort-night the pipe was returned to its owner inscribed “colored in 15 days by order of Nicholas, Emperor.“