AF & Co BBB
England, 1916
Many and many glorious English brands were integrated sooner or later by Cadogan investments. Some companies were acquired in the late XX century, and to find a pre-Cadogan artefacts of some others manufacturers we have to turn back in time very deeply.
BBB was acquired by Cadogan in the 1920s. But this Adolf Frankau (BBB) pipe is still “pre-Cadogan” because of its age: one hundred plus one year old. The hallmarks on the silver collar are identified as Birmingham (Anchor, Lion), 1916 (“r”). Over these years the original stem was lost or broken and the shank area got a few damages – a few short, but wide cracks at the end of the shank and a few scratches and many indentations on the collar. Thus we had to cut a new stem from the fresh piece of vulcanite. Since we didn’t find a similar shape in catalogues, we tried to follow the style and feeling of that time. All cracks and chips were carefully and reliably patched, the collar was very carefully refreshed and lighly polished to save all markings and hallmarks. So we did our best to revive the pipe and now it’s ready to begin its next 100 year period.
The pipe markings are “”, “AF & Co”. The length is 12.8 cm (5.04″), bowl’s height is 4.3 cm (1.69″). External diameter of the bowl is 3.2 cm (1.26″), internal diameter is 1.8 cm (0.71″). The depth is 3.3 cm (1.3″) and this pipe weights 31 gr. Briar, vulcanite stem, no filter. the chamber has norma smoked wear not excluding small scratches and roughness but we didn’t identify any major issues. The stem is newly made of the fresh piece of vulcanite so we can consider the pipe as a “partially unsmoked” :-).
