England, 1960s
Internet is a huge shopping center, communication environment and a source of incredible number of articles, sometimes almost classified documents. For example, it was very interesting to read an internal Dunhill report dedicated to a meeting with Hermann Lane, owner of Charatan in 1973.
From this document follows that Charatan’s pipes were considered to be better than Dunhills, they were sold better in many countries and that Balkan Sobranie offered $1 000 000 for Charatan. Very likely this was a beginning of further processes resulted in the acquisition of Charatan by Dunhill in 1976. But it happened three years later. And yet we can imagine the beginning of 1960s and look at the fantastic pipe of a very attractive shape. It’s difficult to believe that the Belvedere pipes were of a relatively simple grade 🙂
The pipe markings are “CHARATAN’S MAKE \ LONDON ENGLAND \ BELVEDERE”, “483DC”, “(L)”, “REGD N \ 203573”. The length is 14.4 cm, bowl’s hight is 4.9 cm. External and internal diameters of the bowl are 3.7 cm and 2.4 cm. The depth is 4.0 cm and this pipe weights 37 gr. Briar, vulcanite stem, no filter.
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