Smoking pipe: Boer War

Briar wood pipe of the straight billiard shape, with a nickel-plated steel collar around the shank and a ebonite stem and mouthpiece. The ebonite has deteriorated along its length, revealing the grey vulcanised colour. A name has been impressed along the shank, (possibly FRO / [four digit number] / W. MILLI?) while the metal band is marked EP within a diamond, followed by the initials ACF in gothic script.

The owner of this smoking pipe is unknown, but it is typical of the smoking habit of soldiers, especially in the age before cigarettes become widely available.

This pipe was acquired by the Australian War Memorial by purchase from an antiques dealer based in Rundle St, Adelaide in 1953, and was part of a bulk purchase that the dealer had made of W. Sidney Smith's collection at auction.

Interviewed in 1943, W. Sidney Smith revealed that he had purchased this 'solider's remarkable collection' at auction himself twenty years earlier. It was displayed in a 6 x 2 foot case and included "English and Boer tobacco in tins and plugs, patriotic medals, spurs, bullets, shellcases, cutlery, pocket knives pipes, watches'. However, the provenance of the majority of the collection was unknown or was discarded well before Smith acquired it. The collection was featured in "The Advertiser" (Adelaide), on 30 December 1943.