England, 1960-70s
The Charatan’s pipe of a quite rare series: the Perfection grade was introduced during the “second Lane era”, 1965-1976 and followed the highly popular and respected Special grade, though production of Perfection pipes seemed to be rather occasional than regular. Interesting that the pipe doesn’t have a shape number: the most probably because it was created by one of the talented Charatan’s carvers regardless catalogues. And the shape itself is quite unique – just look at the back wall of the bowl: it’s already not the traditional diplomat shape.
The pipe marking is “CHARATAN’S MAKE \ LONDON ENGLAND \ PERFECTION”, “MADE BY HAND”. The length is 15.5 cm (6.1″), bowl’s height is 4.2 cm (1.65″). External diameter of the bowl is 5.0 cm (1.97″), internal diameter is 2.1 cm (0.83″). The depth is 3.4 cm (1.34″) and this pipe weights 64 gr. Briar, vulcanite stem (a little bit patched near the button: you may see the trace under a good light), no filter. The bowl had a few scratched and indentations carefully patched during the restoration.
Leave a Reply