Silas,
    Thanks for your response.  We are in pursuit of Oswald at the moment,
Scott was already aware of Oswald as an important source but had not had an
opportunity to see it, or the BAR sources, yet.

    Chris Murphy

Kate and Silas wrote:

> Makers' marks on spurs are not uncommon - I believe Oswald illustrates a
> number of examples.  There are several in the various BAR volumes.  I know
> we have such specimens which were published from the St. John's Site (18ST
> 1-23) in St. Mary's City, MD in the BAR volume on the Chesapeake co-edited
> by Peter Davey and Dennis Pogue.
>
> Silas Hurry
> Historic St. Mary's City
>
> At 02:56 PM 3/8/02 -0500, you 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