England, 1960-70s Both the stamping “Made by hand” and the heavy bowled shape were absolutely typical for the Charatan’s second Lane era (1965 – middle of 1970s) pipes. This sample was perhaps predetermined to become at least an upper middle grade pipe, but a couple of scratches and chips changed its destiny quite dramatically and…
USA A very impressive unsmoked pipe of a very rare series made by the one of the largest USA pipe manufacturers (currently acquired by S. M. Frank & Co. Inc.). There’s no shape number therefore we’re unable to say for sure which period the pipe belongs to. The most probably it’s a creature of the…
England, 1950s A shining lightweight and surprising indeed Barling’s pipe! It comes from a large family era Barling’s collection produced for the Middlesbro Winter Garden, we have already represented a very similar Barling’s Make Guinea Grain from this batch. But this pipe has only a script “Barling” logo stamped twice (see pictures). There’s also no…
USA, 1980-90s The pipe is from the T. Cristiano’s old stock. It was shaped and drilled approximately in 1980s, but finished nowadays. Tomas Cristiano was Italian by origin, his family emigrated to the USA in 1968 and several generations of Cristiano are involved into production and marketing of wonderful briar pipes. Thomas began at the…
USA, 1980-90s The pipe is from the T. Cristiano’s old stock. It was shaped and drilled approximately in 1980s, but finished nowadays. Tomas Cristiano was Italian by origin, his family emigrated to the USA in 1968 and several generations of Cristiano are involved into production and marketing of wonderful briar pipes. Thomas began at the…
England, 1949 The sandblast finish is considered to be invented by Dunhill, at least this fact was confirmed with patents of 1917 – in Great Britain and 1920 – in the USA. From the very beginning Algerian briar was used for blasted pipes as it was much softer and provided deeper and more attractive finish….
England Invicta started as a pipe repair service (“Medway Briars”). The careful choice of material, successful market policy and the carvers, experienced with Dunhill and Charatan, made the company one of the live legends of British briar. Invicta pipes is a product of cooperation of three masters – Colin Fromm (Charatan’s, Dunhill), Bill Ashton-Taylor (Dunhill,…
England, 1950-70s A very convincing and very lightly smoked traditional English billiard made by Comoy’s. Their McGahey series was made most probably for the McGahey tobacconist located in Exeter, Devon, UK. The shop is still open nowadays and you can easily find it on Google Maps. We haven’t been there yet, but every English tobacconist…
Ireland, 1910-15 This compact “military” billiard has recently celebrated its century. Except the name of the maker and the city name, there are no other markings on the pipe, in particular a designation of the manufacturing country (COM). Such situation was in 1910-15, when the Peterson patent has already expired, but the stamp “Made in…
England An attractive lightweight classical English pipe of the one of the most famous grades produced by John Redman factory in the second half of XX century. The “Aristocrat” series was destined for export and the company introduced such version of this grade to satisfy more USA customers.