Sepiolite (Meerschaum) ex Mullane Coll.

Item Description

An old specimen of Meerschaum ("sea foam"), in essence sepiolite from Turkey used for carving smoking pipes and other gee-gaws. It forms as nodules in red clay, then cleaned and dried and carved. Sepiolite is an uncommon hydrated Mg-silicate. 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. Ex Dennis Mullane Collection and comes with a The Bradleys label dating to the 1950s or 60s. Light for its size at 29 grams.