Thank you petina and samurai8 for the information!

I'd be interested what "actual kiseru use is somewhat rare" in fact means. Probably far to few people, so that noone knows something about it first-hand. But according to your postings, we could conclude that the Kiseru is more a collector's passion than an part of the japanese smoking culture. Is this true? Noone here has ever seen a Kiseru beeing used in Japan?
(At least, what I know is that the special tobacco for it (kizami) is still being made, so it seems that some people are still using it.)

I did some research for Germany, we have a population of about 80 Millions, and about 500000 still are pipe smokers, so thats a bit below 1%, but still enough to occasionally see it in public.

Thanks again!