A month back I wrote my review of the Kilk Novo Baroque, and during that piece I did refer a few times to the emotive reasons partly behind my purchase. At one point I mentioned how the white barrel variant reminded me almost of meerschaum clay, as used in pipes, and which my late father used to collect and smoke. I mentioned I might add some photos of the pen alongside some of those pipes if I got a chance, but instead of adding them to the original article I decided to create this short piece.

I should first point out that I do not smoke and I was glad when my father finally stopped. This was over 20 years before he passed away and actually not that long after the trip to Turkey where he bought a number of these pipes. Some of them he never intended to use.

Second I must apologise for the quality of the photos. I took these when I last visited my mother and only had a compact camera on me plus little control over the lighting.

My mother had a wall mounted display case made for my father, which actually opens out to reveal a second layer, though no meerschaum pipes are held inside. Note what you see above is actually just the top half. If you are interested in pipes and want to see some of his others then message me directly and next time I visit my mother I will take more pictures and send you links to them directly.

I think all three of these pipes have been used and it was while taking this shot I realised I had not thought about scale. The pen is some what dwarfed. I do like the fact that the material used for the stem on the left hand pipe is very similar in appearance to the Novo Baroque. I only noticed this while writing this piece else I may have taken another picture, with the pen by just that one pipe.

I later found the box to this pen, complete with authenticity certificate signed by the artist, Osman Tuncer. I can find nothing online about him, but then these pipes were purchased some 35-40 years ago, before the World Wide Web, and back when there was nothing called the Internet, it was ‘just’ a collection of ARPANET, JANET and others. I do remember my father looking for specific stores so I assume at the time the artist was known, else the trader he bought a number of the pipes from was one he had been told about and had a good reputation.

Now this name does spring up on Google and must also be why the pipe was on display in a cabinet with other ‘show’ and family heritage items rather than with the other pipes. The case and name plate type are the same as with the former pen so perhaps Osman Tuncer was a student or associate of Eyup Sabri. The Pipedia.org article is light on information but still gives an insight into this prized artist, who passed away on 2005.