England, 1950s
Normally the dating of Dunhill pipes doesn’t cause complications. In this particular case we may say for sure it’s one of the late patent period Dunhill Shell samples made in 1950, so it’s already more than 70 years old beauty now. Nevertheless the stamping “EX 511” adds some mystery and charm. Of course it’s not a shape number, Dunhill shape numbers starts from the group size designation. And our pipe doesn’t belong to the Group 5 under any circumstamces. Fortunately Steve Laug (rebornpipes.com) published recently a post dedicated to another Dunhill pipe with the “EX” stamp and performed some investigation (https://rebornpipes.com/tag/dunhill-root-briar-pipes/) . According to it “EX” means “exchange of a pipe under guarantee” and we’re pretty sure 511 is the date code (January 1951 or the exchange number 1 in 1951). That sounds quite logically: the pipe was made in 1950 and given as a replacement to a customer already i 1951 (in such a case the pipe from Steve’s blog was made in 1958 and exchanged in 1960 what’s absolutely believable). Good prooof that Dunhill is so highly respected not only due to the excellent quality, but to the top level service as well.
The pipe marking is “116”, “EX511 (?)”, “DUNHILL SHELL”, “MADE IN ENGLAND 0”, “PATENT №417574/34”, “(1)”. The same patent number you may see on the stinger (The length is 15.5 cm (6.1″), bowl’s height is 3.7 cm (1.46″). External diameter of the bowl is 2.8 cm (1.1″), internal diameter is 1.8 cm (0.71″). The depth is 3.2 cm (1.26″) and this pipe weights 18 gr. Briar, vulcanite stem (looks a very liitle bit overpolished from the shank side), aluminium tube (stinger) with some signs of a wear. The stem looks a very liitle overbuffed from the shank side.
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