Meerschaum

General Questions
#1

Anybody know where I could pick up a block for carving, preferably not one of the pressed composite from scrap? mrAru’s birthday is coming up at the end of August, and he expressed interest in trying to carve something out of it. I tried googling and other than one site with pipe kits that are predrilled with the stem and bowl homes and made of the composite which sort of limits what he can carve I couldn’t really find anything except pipes that were already made and the pipe kit.

I did find a source of american indian pipestone, very pretty red but I thought it was a restricted product?

#2

Pipestone isn’t restricted. However, to mine it from the traditional quarries one must be a registered Indian. Do be careful in buying it however and there is stone out there that looks just like pipestone, but is nearly impossible to hand carve like the real stuff. There is much controversy however regarding non Indians being and calling themselves a pipe carrier. Do a Google search the Little Feather Center if you want to know more about pipestone.

#3

Most meerschaum is from Turkey, which restricts its sale in raw form.

#4

I am not interested at all in american indian pipestone, mrAru wants the proper meerschaum, though I did note in researching it that it is also found in California, but I can not find an online merchant selling an undrilled, proper hunk of meerschaum for carving, and he does not want a pipe kit, because he doesn’t want to carve a pipe…

#5

Does Etsy have a forum/message board? Maybe someone on there will have the answer.

Bob