England, 1960-70s Fribourg & Treyer was perhaps the most reputable English tobacconist. “While most collectors are familiar with the “Royal Appointment” accorded certain well-established businesses in England (most commonly seen on Dunhill packaging) FRIBOURG & TREYER’s not only held an identical appointment by the King of England, but they also had a similar “Royal Appointment”…
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…
England, 1950-70s One of the top graded GBD pipes. The Virgin series followed their famous Pedigree, Prodigy and Straight Grain grades. The pipe was made in the 1970s latest, before the merge with Comoy’s by Cadogan. An extraordinary sample! Firstly, the pipe has a significantly extended stem, though it’s a Canadian (or a lumberman, to be…
England, 1950-70s One of the top graded GBD pipes. The Virgin series followed their famous Pedigree, Prodigy and Straight Grain grades. The pipe was made in 1970s the latest, before the merge with Comoy’s by Cadogan. Amazing grain, wonderful classical billiard shape, stylish perspex stem! This is the really pleasant pipe!
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…
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…
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.
England, 1976-81 It would be very much boring if everything was unambiguous and transparent with pipes origin history. But, fortunately, not all producers behaved as Dunhill with their obligatory nearly hundred years stamped year suffixes (however, Dunhill was not always pedantic too :-)). Here is, for example, a very rare (some collectors write “extremely rare”)…
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…
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…