Month: April 2016

  • DUNHILL London Ao T35 (1933)

    England, 1933 In the beginning Dunhill created Bruyere. And several years (1910-1917) it was the single brand made by the company of a firm and dense Calabrian briar. And though pre WWII “bruyeres” were marked just by a letter “A” instead of model (or Ao like in this case), the Bruyere series is the one…

  • GBD New Standard 1964

    England, 1950-70s There was probably no other such creative and innovative manufacturer offering that variety of shapes and grades. For example, while at the end of the XIX century GBD catalogues offered  more than 1500 models, in the second half of XX century a shape number 9889 didn’t surprise nobody. And of course, in our…

  • BARLING’S Guinea Grain EL

    England, 1950s Middlesbrough (Middlesbrough or Middlesbro) is a town in the north-east of England. It is known as a seaport, an industrial centre and the homeland of the musician Chris Rhee. In 1907 Lady Florence Bell, the wife of the local industrialist Hugh Bell, wondered why people spend so much time in pubs? As it…

  • GBD New Century 9438

    England, 1950-70s There was probably no other such creative and innovative manufacturer offering that variety of shapes and grades. For example, while at the end of the XIX century GBD catalogues offered  more than 1500 models, in the second half of XX century a shape number 9889 didn’t surprise nobody. In the 1950th GBD celebrated…

  • BARLING’S MAKE Ye Olde Wood 447 EXEL

    England, 1950s ​A decent size traditional English lovat pipe made at Barling’s family factory between 1946 and 1962, i.e. during the pre-transition period. The arched BARLING’S MAKE logo is already of a full size, larger than before WWII. Additionally there’s a three-digit shape number (447). The logo on the original stem hasn’t remained well visible…

  • GBD Collector Fantasy 9588

    England, 1950-70s Legendary GBD offered not only an incredible variety of shapes and grades but was constantly open for any innovations and any consumer tastes. And when after the WWII perspex became a very popular material for self made mouthpieces, toys and souvenirs, GBD initiated a new option for many pipe grades – the perspex…

  • GBD (Flame Grain) Reject

    England A rare, amazing and really lightly smoked example of GBD pipes art before the merge with Comoy’s. It’s difficult to say why the pipe was marked as a “Reject” – except a small darkening on the chamber’s bottom apparently there’s nothing.

  • GBD Prehistoric 9491

    England, 1950-70s ​A striking example of the desperate and wild “prehistoric” sandblast from GBD. This quite tall billiard was made before 1980, i.e.  before the merge of the company with Comoy’s under a roof of Cadogan’s. Therefore the pipe is interesting by both the period of birth and belonging to this cult series. And the…

  • BRIARCRAFT Sterling Hall 62

    USA, 1930s The history of Briarcraft has begun in 1910 in the State of New York and it was rather short (the company existed till 1950), but really bright and memorable. In the pre WWII years Briarcraft was one of leaders of the USA pipe market, the second manufacturer after the Frank’s Mediko company. Briarcraft…

  • GBD Fantasy 549 unstamped

    England, 1950-70s ​Despite the pipe was not completely marked, we hadn’t difficulties with its identification (as well as with restoration). Such original finish with the panels protected from sandblasting is typical for the GBD Fantasy series. The most likely it is the 549 shape, the manufacturer has just a few models of bulldog pipes with…