Sherlock
Holmes' Pipe
Or Was It? 
I’m sure we’ve all seen the famous calabash pipe,
as favoured
by Sherlock Holmes. You know, the curly calabash with it’s distinctive
shape
(picture above, and background, from Wikipedia).
The original calabash pipes are made
from the calabash
gourd. The African variety is regarded as the best to use, as the
European
(usually Greek) calabash gourds rarely have the right shape favoured by
the
pipe makers and smokers. The main
part of the calabash pipe is the top, bent stem of
the African calabash gourd. The actual bowl, in which the tobacco is
smoked, is an insert, often of meerschaum or porcelain. Which is
inserted into
the hollowed out gourd stem, with the aid of a cork gasket.
A ferrule, of wood, or plastic, or
other suitable material,
is inserted into the narrow part of the gourd stem. This is to take the
bent
vulcanite pipe stem which is the part which goes into the mouth of the
smoker.
If that stem were to be inserted directly into the gourd there would be
a good
chance of cracking or breaking it.
Some calabash pipes are decorated with
silver bands, even a
silver cover around the top of the bowl. So we can see that these pipes
are
pretty labour-intensive. Making them expensive these days.
Calabash pipes smoke cooler and drier
than many other types
of pipe, because it’s construction means that the smoke passes from the
bottom
of the actual smoking bowl into the empty space of the gourd beneath,
which
takes away a lot of the heat and strength of the smoke before it
reaches the smoker.
Now, where Sherlock Holmes comes in.
The construction of the
calabash pipe gives it a low centre of gravity. This allows the smoker
to
easily hold the pipe in the mouth alone. Actors would take advantage of
this
property, as it allowed them to depict their character smoking a pipe
while
leaving the hands free for other “business”. Think of Basil Rathbone
and
William Gillette, who both played Sherlock Holmes.
In fact Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never
actually wrote
of
Sherlock Holmes smoking a calabash pipe, and Sidney Paget in his
illustrations
usually had Holmes smoking a long-stemmed (churchwarden) pipe.
We know that Sherlock Holmes himself
preferred very strong,
harsh tobacco, and would probably never have given the calabash the
time of
day, due to it’s mellowing effect upon the smoking mixture.
Chris Haycock
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