DUNHILL Tanshell 63

England, 1967

It seems we talk about Charatan’s pipes very frequently. This Charatan’s, another Charatan’s, “Dunhill killer”… At the same time Dunhill’s pipes successfully beat all competitors and remain at the top of glory, popularity and commercial success.

Yes, it is skillfully constructed business. In terms of marketing – the cult of the white dot isn’t less known than for example a cult of a bitten apple. And in terms of the quality. And in terms of the service. Actually,  the year suffix on a pipe is put exactly for needs of the service.

To be fair the logistics was sometimes an issue. And we don’t talk about WWII years when Dunhill remained a rare manufactory allowed to obtain briar for their production. There was a period (in 1960’s and 1970’s) when Dunhill was unable to supply Algerian briar and instead of that Sardinian briar was procured – much denser and much harder. Therefore Dunhill stopped using their patented “deep shell” (double blast) technique for this period. And the same time the Tanshell pipes were made of Sardinian briar from the beginning (1952). Thus this series was something like a test case “what would we do with our sandblasted pipes if…”. Sounds quite modern, isn’t it?

The pipe markings are “”DUNHILL \ TANSHELL”, “63”, “MADE IN \ ENGLAND 7”, “(2) T”. The length is 14.2 cm, bowl’s hight is 3.5 cm. External and internal diameters of the bowl are 3.3 cm and 2.0 cm. The depth is 2.7 cm and this pipe weights 23 gr. Briar, vulcanite stem, inner tube. The pipe comes with the original pouch.