HISTORY OF A PIPE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LI, Issue 94, 21 March 1931, Page 9

HISTORY OF A PIPE.

BUSINESS DEAL ROMANCE

A remarkable business romance lies hidden, behind an exquisitely carved meerschaum pipe offered for sale in a tobacconist’s shop window. The pipe was originally purchased at the Saltaire Exhibition in 1887 for £35, says a London newspaper.' Years later it came into the possession of a man, who was in the habit of referring to it in front of his friends as “the 30,000 pipe,” owing to the fact that he had completed a five-figure business deal while smoking it. Because of the memories which the pipe held for him he would not part with it during his lifetime, but now, the shopkeeper in Godwin Street says, he has been asked to try and sell it f'jr a woman who is in straitened circumstances. “My lips are sealed as to the ownership of the pipe,” the tobacconist added, “but the romance attached to it is quite genuine. It is a wonder pipe that must have taken months and months to carve, and'so great may be its value to-day, when meerschaum pipes generally are scarce, that I am keeping it locked in my safe until I put it in the window, when it will go to the highest bidder.”