August, 1 9 13 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



295 



Old Time - 

 Pipe Stoppers 



By Marie Elizabeth Camp 

 Photographs by T. C. Turner 



HE old-time pipe-stopper is one of the 

 articles of interest to collectors which is, 

 perhaps the least known of any agggaanm 

 of the accessories of the pipe. 

 Dating as it does from the time 

 when pipe-smoking first became 



portrai 

 gestive 



the custom and used generally during the seven- 

 teenth and eighteenth centuries, it is remark- 

 able that this little device for stuffing tobacco 

 into the bowl of the pipe (measuring in most 

 instances about two inches in length and devised 

 to be carried in the smoker's pocket) went into 

 such sudden oblivion that even few data con- 

 cerning its vogue are difficult to unearth from 

 the dust of records and contemporary chance 

 references. Pipe stoppers were made of brass, 

 silver, glass, wood, and often from animals 1 

 teeth tipped with silver, brass and ivory. All 

 sizes and quaint shapes were used by designers 

 of these objects and modeled with great care 

 and delicacy. Those representing the profes- 

 sions or occupations of the owner were the most 

 popular design and most extensively used. 

 Some of these have survived. Lately they have 

 been reproduced in England, for a few shillings, 

 each with fidelity to the originals. The old 

 silver stoppers were to be found in great va- 

 riety, one curious example in the form of a 

 ring, to be worn on the finger, with a long 

 neck projecting and forming the stopper. The 

 many profile bust portraits of celebrities were 

 more frequently made in brass. Of the profile 



ts an interesting one is that of Shakespeare, so sug- 

 of the play and its use as the author's stopper, and 

 also the heads of royalty, statesmen and great 

 generals; the Golden Fleece, with the lamb in 

 the circle, a symbol of chastity and fraternity, 

 for use in. secret orders; the popular country 

 gentleman, representing the country squire, in all 

 his dignity of dress, and the thistle design used 

 by Scotchmen. 



Again we find the figure of the woodsman or 

 country man, the pipe stopper of the farmer and 

 its antithesis in that of the shoe-black or under 

 valet, of the city, with brush in hand as the 

 insignia of his calling. The politician, the 

 musician, the admiral for the sailor's pipe, and 

 Napoleon, which found its way to France from 

 England and into popular use there, are also of 

 the innumerable assortment of stoppers used 

 in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 



Thus can we appreciate the value, both actual 

 and sentimental, of a trinket which has now be- 

 come adaptable to present usage as a seal and 

 an attractive accessory for the writing-table, for 

 the flat, circular end of the stopper is especially 

 suited for the engraving of the coat-of-arms or 

 crest — this making the stopper do a double duty. 



With the increasing simplicity of men's mod- 

 ern dress has come consistently the simplicity of 

 adornment — thus the pipe stopper has been rele- 

 gated to the days of snuff boxes and gold-headed 

 walking-sticks, and given place to the plain silver 

 or gold stoppers occasionally used by smokers. 



