It would help if we knew what the pipe looked like. The bowl
changes through time and the shape of the pipe might tell us what
century the pipe belongs to, which might help us to identify it.
Also, make sure you're reading the initials correctly. Is it RF
or FR?

Diane Dallal


ASU Archaeology Lab wrote:
>
> Dear List mates,
>     My student Scott Kitchens is working on a paper on ball clay smoking
> pipes.  He has done a good deal of reading in the sources that we have,
> but given the limited nature of our reference materials, this has not
> been exhaustive.
>
>     He has looked at Noel Hume (Colonial Artifacts), Pfeiffer (Tobacco
> related assemblage ...), Humphrey (Clay pipes from old Sacremento),
> Sackett (Hist. Clay Pipes of the Minnesota Area), Davey (Arch. of the
> Clay Tobacco Pipe), Thomas' paper in South's Historic Site Arch. Papers,
> as well as several general histories of smoking & pipes.  He has seen
> Pfeiffer's bibliography (though we wouldn't have many of the entries).
>
>     Scott has observed that several of our pipes have what appear to be
> single small Roman letters (one appears to be an "F", another an "R") on
> the sides of their spurs (the small extension below the bowls of some of
> these pipes), but has not seen any mention of these marks in his
> reading.  Can anyone give us any guidance in trying to identify the
> function of these embossed marks or sources on them.
>
>     Any help would be much appreciated.
>
>     Christopher Murphy
>     Department of History & Anthropology
>     Augusta State University