Search results for ""Author Ben Rapaport""

Collecting Antique Meerschaum Pipes: Miniature to Majestic Sculpture, 1850-1925 is an illustrated guide to the smoking utensils made of a mineral that has been used since at least the early 1700s and which is, today, still a popular material. In the last decade, a surge in interest in tobacco collectibles has already spawned many books on cigarette lighters, cigar-box labels, and snuff boxes and bottles. This book now comes at a time when antique meerschaums are taking center stage, and collecting them is like buying blue-chip stocks. Ben Rapaport is one of the few internationally recognized authorities on the subject of antique pipes, and in this, his second book published by Schiffer, he has created a powerful and convincing tour de force in word and picture that evidences why so many pipe collectors have a fervent passion for these exceptional works of art. Ranging from very diminutive and expressive cigarette holders to massive sculptured pipes, these instruments were produced by many talented, skilled, and unknown craftsmen working in a cottage industry trade 150 years ago. The caliber of their handiwork and the myriad imaginative meerschaums they produced cannot be duplicated anywhere in the world today. Now, this volume is a permanent record of their unrivaled genius.

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This is the first American book to consider the history and development of the tobacco-smoking pipe as an art form and is an illustrated guide for pipe collectors. Here the author has assembled fact and fancy, history laced with humor, and a chronological collection of pipes. The accompanying text explains pipe styles, materials, and values. Besides present-day briars and corn cobs, pipes can be found made of meerschaum, porcelain, ivory, amber, silver, gold, semi-precious stones and rare woods. Craftsmen have combined imagination, whim, and fantasy to create pipes of fine artistic value.

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Here is the first illustrated retrospective of the storied evolution and continental acceptance of the porcelain pipe. The history of these beautiful pipes is covered in over 145 brilliant photos and detailed, informative text, from their revolutionary introduction as early objets d'art to their eventual eclipse as twentieth century kitsch. While the history, manufacture, and use of clay, meerschaum, and briar tobacco pipes have been thoroughly documented, the authors have now crafted a chronicle about porcelain tobacco pipes. This pipe originated with an eighteenth-century, European design developed in France and in Germany and its production spanned roughly 250 years. Porcelain pipes for student life, sporting coats of arms, commemorating military campaigns, adorned with a wide range of flora and fauna, and much more are illustrated and described. Whether you are a pipe smoker, pipe collector, or someone who appreciates antique and vintage porcelain objects, this vivid narrative is a fascinating read.

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