Dave,
http://hqinet001.hqmc.usmc.mil/HD/Historical/Customes_Traditions/Emblem_Seal
.htm has some interesting info on earlier USMC emblems.
For fouled anchors as a general nautical symbol, see
http://www.atlasgeo.ch/FOTW/flags/xf-anch.html,
and as a Masonic symbol or to ensure safe travel,
http://www.luckymojo.com/anchor.html,
http://www.anchlodge.fsnet.co.uk/anch2.htm

-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of David
Babson
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 6:07 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Clay Pipe Markings


Last year the group I was working with found a very elaborately molded
white clay pipe, that would also fit this 1840-1870 range from
associated ceramics.  It had a three-masted ship with gunports
(man-o'war or a whaler) on one side, and a tall, thin anchor fouled with
a single line on the other side.  The person who found it is a former
Marine, and immediately recognized the fouled anchor motif.  The anchor
and line are arranged differently from the modern USMC insignia, but, as
I understand it, the Marine Corps has used the fouled anchor, on
buttons, etc. since the first decade of the 19th century, so I cannot
completely discount a connection, by means of a veteran buying and using
such a pipe.  I've been unsuccessful in finding pictures of Marine Corps
insignia from before the Civil War.  I have heard of white clay tobacco
pipes as symbolically-active artifacts; the same is true of
historical-pictorial whiskey flasks from this same period, and a bit
earlier.

D. Babson.


-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Lauren Cook
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 3:12 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Clay Pipe Markings

1) "it is a common design  motif on pipes that were produced by several
American factories through most of  the 19th century"

Actually, most appear to have been made by White or McDougall in
Scotland or
other makers elsewhere in Britain. Any American production was dwarfed
by
the output of Scottish and British makers.

2) "one common 'explanation' is that it originally stood for 'Tommy
Duncan'"

That's one I've never heard before. The usual attribution of those who
bother to make one is to someone named Thomas Dermer.

Walker, Iain C.
1966 TD Pipes: A Preliminary Study.  Quarterly Bulletin, Archaeological
Society of Virginia 20:86-102 (July 1966).

3) "I do not believe the man who bought a clay pipe from  a store or
ship
chandler actually paid much attention to the designs."

I believe they did.  And the studies below show that at least in the
urbanized northeast there were selective preferences among smokers for
pipes
with ethnic and nativist motifs.

See:

Cook, Lauren J.
1989 Tobacco-Related Material and the Construction of Working-Class
Culture.
In, Interdisciplinary Investigations of the Boott Mills, Lowell,
Massachusetts. Volume III: The Boarding House System as a Way of Life,
edited by Mary C. Beaudry and Stephen A. Mrozowski, pp. 209-229.
Cultural
Resources Management Study No. 21.  National Park Service, Boston.

and

Reckner, Paul F.
2000 Negotiating Patriotism at Five Points: Clay Tobacco Pipes and
Patriotic
Imagery Among Trade Unionists and Nativists in a Nineteenth-Century New
York
Neighborhood.  In, Tales of the Five Points: Working-Class Life in
Nineteenth-Century New York.  Volume II: An Interpretive Approach to
Understanding Working-Class Life, Rebecca Yamin, ed., pp. 99-110.  John
Milner Associates, Inc., West Chester, PA.

4) "why not kick TD around for  a few days?"

Why not read Walker's article and save yourself the trouble?

Lauren J. Cook, RPA
Senior Archaeologist
Richard Grubb & Associates, Inc.
30 North Main Street
Cranbury, NJ 08512

Ph: 609 655-0692 ext 312
Fx: 609 655-3050
email: [log in to unmask]



-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Ron
May
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 1:40 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Clay Pipe Markings


I am surprised Smoke Pfiefer has not explained in detail about the TD
pipes.
So, at the risk of his wrath, let me state that it is a common design
motif
on pipes that were produced by several American factories through most
of
the
19th century. Theories about the TD abound, but one common "explanation"
is
that it originally stood for "Tommy Duncan"--- who he was remains a
mystery
to
 me. I would guess that many pipe designers simply picked up the
initials
along  with the stars, shields, and other devices. Out here in the Far
Southwest,
boxes  of dozens or hundreds of clay pipes were shipped to market with
little
 explanation of the designs. I do not believe the man who bought a clay
pipe
from  a store or ship chandler actually paid much attention to the
designs.
Still, we  like to have our little mysteries in archaeology and why not
kick
TD
around for  a few days?

Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.