Hi Al,
I took the time to dig up my original notes on the creation of the BBPIA. I found a more detailed mission statement issued in January 1939 at the time the BBPIA was formed, and this provides important additional color on the objectives of the organization. It was essentially aimed at fighting US pipe manufacturers who attempted to mislead US customers into thinking their pipes were made in England; the association's concern was deliberate blurring of the fact that the briar was imported with the manufacturing origin of the actual pipe. They wanted US customers to be able to clearly distinguish between "imported briar pipes" and "pipes made from imported briar". In its way this is a direct analog of the fight within the British industry, which took place over a decade earlier, regarding what precisely gave a manufacturer the right to stamp a pipe as of domestic (i.e. British) origin.
Here is what the BBPIA had to say on the subject in January of 1939:
"The purpose of the association is to eliminate the practice of selling pipes made in this country from imported briar as imported pipes of British manufacture, to stop the stamping of pipes made here with the names and trademarks of popular English manufacturers, and to stop misleading advertisements of pipes purporting to be of British manufacture"
The point of the somewhat garish BBPIA emblem was to identify goods that were legitimately made in Britain (stationary, publicity, and boxes were supposed to bear the association logo, hence its registration as a trademark). I haven't attempted to track the degree to which party discipline in this regard was enforced on BBPIA members (the importers of Oppenheimer/GBD, Sasieni, Comoy, Peterson, Ben Wade, & Barling), but wouldn't be surprised if like most "reforms" it started with a bang and gradually petered out over time. Certainly the beginning of the war, and its impact on the trade, might have been a factor.
Rgds,
Jon