Cleaning the outside of a Meer?

[DaBear]

Meerschaum is a type of clay, so the pipe itself is a fired version of that, a ceramic. You don't want to scratch the inside of the bowl just in the same way you don't want to scratch a fine china plate, only the consequences for scratching meerschaum are more severe due to its use. Once you've scratched the bowl you've essentially given the bowl a slight crack. Just wait for that first relatively cold day where the temperature gradient from the inside of the bowl of the pipe to the outside is large, the crack will essentially expand until the pipe itself breaks.

Meerschaum, while durable when talking from a purely smoking stand point, is the most durable of all pipes as you will never burn it out so long as its treated with care, but from any other standpoint it is the most fragile of pipes. If you drop it, its likely to shatter and you can't take it out on cold days like a briar as it risks the pipe cracking/shattering.