Dates on a pipe and a vase please.

Don't know if this opium pipe is real or repro but it has enough wear in the right places for me. Just love the metalwork detail.
data bowl 7cm Diameter 20cm High 0.22Kg

The vase was listed as Sumida Gawa and does look like it. The bottom is numbered 8619 but no makers marks.
Data 19.5cm High 11.4cm Diameter 0.28Kg

Sorry for the photo quality. My workshop where they are usually done is +37C at the moment so I've taken some quickies inside. Strange! You're freezing and I'm cooking.

 

that's more of a water pipe than a traditional opium pipe....and this is the first I've really seen of them...

BUT................I'm always willing to learn though......



some say 1940's



other's say 1850 to 1905....


https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/90195322_china-1850-1905-ad-porcelain-water-opium-pipe-in-round


they all look the bloody same to me ........... and...water pipes........




and there's literally ....thousands of em.......??????????????????

 

I say made in the eBay era, never before.

 

i don't like those little keys attached to the jars,,

here's a key...that's used to scrape the opium out of a pot and into the pipe bowl...( center left..)

 

I think the keys on mine are not there to clean the insides but to block or unblock the tiny hole at the top somehow regulating the amount of vapor produced. Mine would also need a cleaning key and a heater. As for thousands there are six or seven similar on eboo and they are somewhat pricey.

cited from wikipedia
True opium pipes allow for the opiate to be vaporized while being heated over a special oil lamp known as an opium lamp. It is thought that this manner of "smoking" opium began in the seventeenth century when a special pipe was developed that vaporized opium instead of burning it. The configuration of the typical opium pipe consists of a long stem, a ceramic pipe-bowl, and a metal fitting, known as the "saddle", through which the pipe-bowl plugs into the pipe-stem. The pipe-bowl must be detachable from the stem due to the necessity to remove the bowl and scrape its insides clean of opium ash after several pipes have been smoked.

 

Not this again. Opium pipes bear ZERO resemblance to the OP's "pipe". Opium is not placed IN anything it is smeared ON to something, the ceramic "bowl".

Read this, it is definitive. All other wishful thinking, imaginative, fake, promotional and auction fantasies notwithtanding.

https://web.uvic.ca/vv/student/chinatown/opium/p2.html

 

As for thousands there are six or seven similar on eboo..........

I just showed over a dozen in one photo.........Google has page after page of them......

 

Not fantasy @blooey . Just not a standard pipe. This is better described as a water opium pipe. The tiny metal bowl at the top is heated over a flame and put back on the bowl which has water in it then opium applied to the bowl causing it to smoke. I think mine is missing the tube that would force the smoke to travel down through the water.

 

Nope, sorry, these things only started appearing for sale in the late 1990s. They are fantasy items designed to sell to the west, under the guise of "oriental mystique" ... they probably aren't even any good to smoke tobacco or weed in and if you smell yours, it more than likely hasn't got any residue or ash in it, because it was never used as an actual pipe. Completely a late 20thc invention passed off as something old.

My city was one of the primary Chinatowns on the west coast in the 19th and 20th centuries. We have museums full of artifacts from those days and just north of us is a mining town that was almost totally occupied by Chinese immigrant workers in those eras. No pipe like yours has ever been found. The artifacts cover both the rich and poor and the opium pipes found vary in quality but not in design. Not one of them resemble yours.

 

i can not corroborate..........

Tonkin woman smoking opium , 1895 Vietnam.....

woerld4.eu

 

The smoking of Opium was banned long before your pipe was produced. It is also illegal (in some countries) to even own or sell such items unless you clearly state its for decorative purposes only.

The History of Opium | Opium (wordpress.com)

 

That rings a few bells. While searching for info on this shape I came across two images from people who purchased them in Vietnam. One was purchased in the sixties and was old even then. I think we are confusing Chinese pipes with Vietnamese ones.

 

... meanwhile, in My back yard opium den earlier today: