Sepiolite (Meerschaum)

Item Description

A very sculptural, old polished nodule of Meerschaum ("sea foam"), in essence sepiolite from Turkey used for carving smoking pipes and other handicrafts. Sepiolite is an uncommon hydrated Mg-silicate. It forms as nodules in red clay, then cleaned and dried and carved. Turkey banned export of the nodules in the 1970s to encourage the growth of home-grown meerschaum pipe carving, but only managed to kill off the European meerschaum pipe carving industry. More of this fascinating story on Wikipedia. Turkish specimens of this size are RARE today from this ancient locality. This piece looks like a large molar tooth! From an East Coast collection and comes with a Hugh Ford label dating dating from 1946-57. Light for its size at 57 grams. Value today???