Vintage Coolmaster Nylon Biteproof Double Bore Briar Bowl Meerschaum Insert Pipe

Unscrew the bowl on this one and the chamber wall is meerschaum, not briar. That is the detail the whole pipe is built around.

This is a nylon-bodied smoking pipe stamped NYLON BITEPROOF COOLMASTER DOUBLE BORE across the shank. The bowl is a separate briar unit, threaded so it screws directly into the nylon body, and its interior is lined with meerschaum rather than left as bare wood.

Bowl: briar, with a meerschaum insert
Stem: nylon
Stamped: "NYLON BITEPROOF COOLMASTER DOUBLE BORE"

Nylon reached pipe manufacture in the middle of the twentieth century as an alternative to vulcanite for a shank and mouthpiece that would not oxidize, fade, or soften under a hard bite - which is why BITEPROOF appears in the same stamp line as the material name. It is a plastic, not a wood, and it takes a mechanical strain that briar and vulcanite cannot: a smoker who clenches down will mark vulcanite and can crack briar at the shank; nylon absorbs the pressure and shows nothing for it.

DOUBLE BORE names the second feature of the design. Two air channels run through the nylon shank side by side, rather than the single channel cut through a standard briar shank. Two channels give smoke and condensation more surface to cross before reaching the stem, which is the basic mechanism behind any pipe built to run cooler and drier than a single-bore equivalent - the same principle behind every drilled condenser chamber sold before or since, worked here into the shank itself rather than into a separate removable fitting.

The bowl threads into that shank instead of mortising into it, which means it can be turned out of the nylon body entirely - a briar cup, on its own, small enough to sit in the hand. Inside that cup the chamber is lined with meerschaum. Meerschaum's relevant property is heat: it draws heat away from a burning bowl faster than briar does, which is the entire reason solid meerschaum pipes are prized and why they color pale from within over a smoking life. Set as a liner inside a briar shell, the meerschaum here performs that same job on a smaller scale. The briar gives the bowl its exterior shape and carries the threading; the meerschaum manages the heat the tobacco produces against the wall it actually touches.

No shape name is given for this bowl, so none is asserted here. What the measurements describe is a compact upright bowl, 39mm tall and 32mm across at its widest, with a chamber 20mm in diameter and 28mm deep. That is a moderate chamber - larger than a nose-warmer, well short of a group 4 or 5 briar - holding enough tobacco for a smoke of some length without demanding the packing technique a narrow, deep chamber requires.

Finish and grain: see the photographs.

THE MARKS
- Shank stamped "NYLON BITEPROOF COOLMASTER DOUBLE BORE"

Condition: the seller reports the pipe pre-smoked and in very good condition. No cracks, chips, or repairs are noted.

THE MEASUREMENTS
Length 144.0mm (5.7in) - bowl height 39.0mm (1.5in) - bowl width 32.0mm (1.3in) - chamber diameter 20.0mm (0.8in) - chamber depth 28.0mm (1.1in) - weight 26.0g

A screw-fit briar bowl, a meerschaum liner doing a meerschaum's actual job, and two bores cut into a nylon shank instead of one - a mid-century engineering answer to bite and heat, in a pipe still built to be smoked rather than shelved.

Ships from the Faridunhill / Pipe Collectors Encyclopedia archive. Worldwide shipping and professional sanitation on every estate pipe.

SKU: 078