Clay Pipe in a tree

[Cosmic Tattoos]

I found this a while back.
When they built a dam in Florence Ala., the people who build it lived alongside the river in little shacks. When the dam was finished, TVA bulldozed the shacks and made the trash pile a park. I received a call from a friend that worked at the park and he said a tree by the bank had become uprooted. When I got there I could clearly see tons of late 1800-1900 trash. While my friend rooted through the pile, I checked the roots. I found a hole and knew when I stuck my hand in there it would be bitten. I stuck my hand in there anyway and immediately felt a big bottle. I pulled out a blue bottle (almost liter size) fully intact, and without cracks. When I reached back in the hole I felt the clay pipe. This pipe had been resting in this hole with this giant bottle for the life of this tree and both survived intact. The pipe has never been smoked out of and you can still draw plenty of air through the stem. Amazing. Here is a pic of my best find to date.

 

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[shaun7]

Very cool find

 

[CRUSADER]

French & English flag on the same pipe, wouldn't catch me smoking that one

 

[shaun7]

French & English flag on the same pipe, wouldn't catch me smoking that one

I didn't think about that actually.....uurgh

 

[ivan salis]

the blue liter sized bottle might be a old square "gin" bottle

 

[CRUSADER]

Forgot to say, its great to find a whole one. I have many bowls (don't pick up the stems) & have dug Victorian dumps & never had one as nice as that

 

[The Patriot]

sweet find...

 

[ivan salis]

its for the channel isle folks --you smoke it in such a way that the brit flag side faces england and the french flag side france-- -- lol --britian and france except for WW1 and WW2 not the best of freinds --war wize . --the blue bottle - liter sized sounds like a dutch gin bottle maybe -- squarish shaped?

 

[Atherton]

I wouldn't necessarily nail that down as a French flag just yet.
A lot of different countries use the three vertical bars as a flag... (Ireland, Italy.. A LOT of them)
Without colors it is hard to tell.

 

[ivan salis]

ah english and ireland on a brit made pipe now that would make sense.

 

[tinpan]

I wouldn't necessarily nail that down as a French flag just yet.
A lot of different countries use the three vertical bars as a flag... (Ireland, Italy.. A LOT of them)
Without colors it is hard to tell.

I believe this 19th century clay pipe is union of France and Britain against the Russian "Crimean war"After the war numerous victory items were made which include medals ,buckles, badges and pipes. Nice find dates between 1860 -1890 Mostly made in Britain. ireland didn,t have a national flag in the 19th century.

tinpan

 

[Aquila]

Very nice pipe!

 

[Gonehunting]

thats awesome...

 

[Tnmountains]

Nice clay pipe off the river. TVA sure buried hundreds of thousands of sites. Nice recovery
TnMtns

 

[ProPointer]

Cool beans. Nice looking pipe.

 

[Skelly607]

Sweet pipe!!!!!!

 

[LandStar]

Gots Chalk...lol

Very nice pipe...Never seen one dug whole before

HH,

 

[GioTheGreek]

Wow what are the chances of finding that one lol...

I agree with Tin, Crimean War...

 

[woody50]

Great pipe find! And a whole one, that does not occur very much at all. You were lucky for sure!

Here in Holland we do find them almost whole, most of the time by farms where they were thrown away in holes for ashes (from the fireplace). There the soil had not been disturbed since the time they dumped them. Sometimes you find whole ones that are very long and complete. I would imagine that the reason they were thrown away is that the man of the house died and no one wanted them. I cannot think of any other answer that people would throw away perfectly good pipes. Luckely that ash is soft and I guess does not move around much.

This photo I took a few years back by a good friend of mine, who does not detect or dig anymore (he is in his 80's). He found these about 20 years ago at a farm, its unbelievable. I myself have found a few complete ones but never such long ones (but I don't dig ash holes). When I saw these I did not believe that clay pipes were so long, but its true. The photo is not so clear but I did not have a good camera then.

The last photo shows his longest pipe....
I also added a photo of a colonial pipe that I recently found. I see on the site of this pipe that you can buy such a pipe for a buck.