In one of my favorite movies, “Shadow of the Vampire” Willem Dafoe as the vampire utters the Following line: “I feed like an old man pees - sometimes all at once, sometimes drop by drop.” Strangely enough, creating tampers is much the same way.

With some tampers I will sit down and when I stand back up it will be done. Other tampers can take months with constant tweaking, taking a nip here and a tuck there, as the mood strikes me or as my eye has come to see the piece. With the tamper that you see above, it came about drop by drop.

Then, months after it was begun, an event caused me to bring the piece down off the shelf and finish it. Our neighbor’s (good friends of ours) son was graduating from medical school soon to begin his residency. This made me think of the piece that I have always thought of as “Caduceus”, especially as the shape was been tweaked. To my eye it reminds me greatly of the medical professions symbol which is two snakes coiled around a herald’s staff. Okay, this version is only one snake coiled around a herald’s staff, so I suppose technically it would be a “half caduceus”. Nonetheless, I think that the months of effort has paid off with a very pretty tamper where the amazing material that I call Caneel is allowed to put on quite a show. And, for once I will not apologize for the photos as they really do capture this piece. You will not that the photo above shows one side, and the other “front page” photo shows the other side.

There’s even more good news. This tamper is going to be a great fit in just about any pipe.

Caduceus will come nestled in a Neil Flancbaum crafted buckskin leather pouch as well as a laminated photo ID ownership card. Domestic USPS Priority shipping and air mail for foreign orders is included in the listed price.

To order, either email me at mingkahuna@aol.com or call at 404-543-1672. Paypal is welcome as is your personal check or money order.