If our obsession is not baseless, then it is at least problematic in terms of the buying behavior it produces. For example, I have seen Kaywoodie pipes with Registration Numbers on their stingers go for three times the price of an otherwise completely equal Kaywoodie with an unmarked stinger. That kind of price difference might make sense if we could be sure that the pipe bearing the stamped stinger were really older than the pipe with the unmarked stinger. There, though, is the rub - we cannot be at all sure that marked stingers indicate an older pipe.
One example from my own collection should help open my case for tempering our obsession with Reg. No. stampings. Specifically, I have two Kaywoodie Super Grain pipes in the same shape. The first has a four-digit finish/shape number that dates it to 1939 or earlier. That pipe's stinger has no markings whatsoever. They do not appear to have been polished away; rather they appear to have never been stamped in the first place. The second has a two-digit shape number and dates to the post-1939 period. This pipe, however, does have the Reg. No. stamped on its stinger. In this case, then, the older pipe is not the one with the marked stinger.
Another example will, I hope, reinforce my argument. In my collection I also have a Kaywoodie Centennial whose stinger bears the Reg. No. stamp. I believe it to be an early production example of its line, but it still cannot predate 1946-1947. Other, older Kaywoodie pipes certainly lack the Reg. No. stamp found on my post-war Centennial.
So, what explains the chronologically uneven existence of Reg. No. stamps on Kaywoodie stingers? I do not know. I can speculate that some stingers were produced while the patent was in force but that the stingers were not actually fitted to pipes until a later date. I imagine bins of same-size stingers where marked and unmarked specimens co-mingled until being randomly plucked by a craftsman assembling a pipe. In other cases, such as that of my Centennial, an uncommon shape calling for an uncommon stinger size may have received an older stinger than would have a pipe of a more popular shape. I really do not know why marked stingers are less helpful to dating a Kaywoodie than many, myself included, have imagined. I know only that Reg. No. markings are at best an imperfect cue for dating a Kaywoodie. Perhaps we should stop paying premium prices for a stamp that does not really mean that much.
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