Gallery
Our panel of Judges have selected the 13 winners whose treasured items will go on display at some of the National Trust’s most popular properties in 2010. Find out more about the winning items here.
Chinese opium pipe
Added by Alan Quirk
Located under Memorabilia
Story behind the treasure: Saturday afternoon, four days befor Christmas 1950, damp and dreary. Young soldier exploring Plymouth@s Barbican stands before scruffy junk shop studying dirty metal item in window. Partof model steam engine or smokers pipe? Enters - asks proprietor. Replies - "opium pipe". "How much"? "Five shillings". "Only have four". "Well it's Christmas - yours for four". Two florins changed hands. Several hours polishing changed the dirty green patterned base. Genuine artical or tourist artifact? I don@t know, but nearly 60 years on I still have my cherished (unused) pipe!
