# A Trade Pipe I Almost Left in the Creek for Another 200 Years



## notnefarious (Jul 29, 2015)

I'm still pretty new to hunting artifacts. Picked up this funny looking thing from the creek a couple of weeks back, thinking it migggght be a pipe, but come on...what kind of pipe looks like that!? I came SO close to tossing this thing back in the water! On a whim I dropped it in my daypack (still sure it was probably trash) and forgot about it. 

Lo and behold, I'm looking at r/Arrowheads on reddit the other night and see a couple of them framed in someone's point collection. So at midnight, I jump up and rummage through the house to find this thing (miraculously not crushed) in the bottom of my backpack. Phew!

There's not a whole lot of information about these online, but archived threads in this forum were super helpful. A huge thanks to u/fishtail in particular whose comments here were more helpful than most of the websites I found put together!


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## oops1 (Jul 29, 2015)

That's an awesome find.. I'm by no means artifact wise but that's pretty impressive.


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## lagrangedave (Jul 29, 2015)

Hey neighbor, it's not legal to take artifacts out of creeks.


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## southernman13 (Jul 29, 2015)

Ida picked it up fosho. That's awesome


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## JustUs4All (Jul 29, 2015)

lagrangedave said:


> Hey neighbor, it's not legal to take artifacts out of creeks.



That would depend on the creek.


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## bronco611 (Jul 29, 2015)

what creek? found it in the back yard.


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## Bow Only (Jul 30, 2015)

I've never found a whole trade pipe, only two broken ones.  Congrats.


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## fishtail (Jul 30, 2015)

Very nice!
Appears perfect.
Look at this site, probably where I got most of my information and stole the picture from.
http://www.peachstatearchaeologicalsociety.org/index.php/12-pipes/157-kaolin-clay-trade-pipes


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## fishtail (Jul 30, 2015)

Also look here.
https://anthromuseum.missouri.edu/minigalleries/pamplinpipes/pamplinpipes.shtml
Yours appears slightly different than the "type AF" , at least you get the idea.


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## Russdaddy (Jul 30, 2015)

nice find!


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## GLS (Jul 30, 2015)

With that style bowl, I believe a piece of river cane was the stem.  Gil


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## runswithbeer (Jul 30, 2015)

nice find


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## notnefarious (Jul 30, 2015)

JustUs4All said:


> That would depend on the creek.



That was my impression as well. Will certainly double check just to be sure though.


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## Forest Grump (Jul 30, 2015)

Save you some time:

http://forum.gon.com/showthread.php?t=847179

You need written permission from the landowner.

Looking at Fishtail's links, those pipes were made up until 1951; so there is a small chance yours was dropped by a bootlegger long after "Indian" times. But if I found that, I'd be certain it belonged to an Indian, probably a chief, & I'd be proud as heck of finding it. Good eye!


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## KentuckyHeadhunter (Aug 3, 2015)

I thought it was legal to pick up beer tabs from creeks.


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