JAMES UPSHALL Tilshead

England

“At James Upshall, no part of the production is trusted to pre-set machines or copy-fraisers. Each pipe is shaped on a single flat bed lathe by chisel and the craftsman’s artistic skill. Each James Upshall pipe is the result of perfect briar quality as well as the skill of the hand-turner, no two pipes are identical. Nature and man work together to create the optimal pipe. All models are old English shapes influenced by the hand-turner’s creative mind.

James Upshall give a unique guarantee on each pipe leaving the workshop. No pipe bearing the name of James Upshall is marred by fillings and putty. Scarcity of good quality plateau briar and the time consumed turning by hand, limit our production, but we will always strive to fulfill the growing demand for James Upshall, quality and tradition at its best”.

In fact James Upshall is not a pipe carver. The name of the carver who is creating these exquisite pipes is Barry Jones, a pipe carver with more than 50 year experince. And the company is named after Barne’s ancestor, James Archelaus Upshall. Barry started at Charatan’s from the age of 15 and was responsible for creating the majority of the famous Charatan shapes and the high standard of quality. In 1978, soon after Charatan Pipe Co. was purchased by Dunhill Barry Jones started James Upshal Pipe Company , together with Major Kenneth Barnes, Charatans’ managing director and his son Kennedy Barnes.

Due to very high production standards and quality requirements production is quite limited, about 30 pipes a week. More affordable pipes are marked “Tilshead”, next are (in ascending order) “root quality” grades “S”- Mahogany Red, “A” – Chestnut Tan and “P” – Walnut, next – very high grade straight grain pipes “B”, “G”, “E”, “X”,” XX” and Empire Series on the top.

The pipe marking is “(JAMES UPSHALL)”, “TILSHEAD \ ENGLAND \ MADE BY HAND”. The length is 15.0 cm (4.41″), bowl’s height is 4.3 cm (1.89″). External diameter of the bowl is 3.6 cm (1.65″), internal diameter is 2.0 cm (0.79″). The depth is 3.8 cm (1.5″) and this pipe weights 35 gr. Briar, vulcanite stem, no filter. The pipe had a few dints around the bowl and burnout on the bottom, thus we have carefully fixed all issues and decided to keep the pipe in our own collection.