OK, having been persuaded in another thread Forum Link
It is an 1899 Salmon & Gluckstein. This can be established from the hallmarks on the silver band. The anchor on its side is the Birmingham hallmark the rampant lion is the standard mark which confirms that the article is in fact of the correct quality and one paw, raised, facing left denotes a standard of 92.5% pure silver. The script lowercase ‘z’ indicates a date of 1899; this is further substantiated by the anchor on its side since the Birmingham hallmark cycle for 1875 to 1899 normally had the anchor on its side.
Next we come to the maker which is marked S&G Ld within an oval (although this can only just be made out when looked at very closely). S&G Ld was the mark for Salmon and Gluckstein Ltd. The business was started in 1855 and operated from their first shop in Crown Street, London, UK. From those humble beginnings, Salmon and Gluckstein Ltd went on to become the world's largest retail tobacconist, owning 140 shops in 1901.
As some of you may be aware, a hostile takeover bid of British tobacco companies by the US A.T Co. led by its founder J B Duke, forced the forming of the Imperial Tobacco (an amalgamation of the foremost tobacco companies in Britain) in October 1901. Salmon and Gluckstein Ltd was seen as a great advantage to bring into the ‘fold’ and was bought by Imperial Tobacco in 1902. Although it was now a part of Imperial Tobacco, Salmon & Gluckstein Ltd continued to trade with that name until the brand was dropped in 1955.
Whilst looking all this up I cam across an interesting bit of trivia for Salmon & Gluckstein. During WW2, British aircrews and sailors referred to the German pocket battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau as Salmon and Gluckstein respectively.
As you can see from the pictures, the pipe is not in too bad a condition. There are a couple of dinks inside the rim of the bowl, the stem is not original, although looks in keeping, and the silver has been polished frequently, enough to start to wear the hallmark away.
As soon as it arrived, I gave it a good clean and polish with carnauba wax and gently reamed the bowl out as well as giving the stem a bit of a soak in luke-warm water with a bit of Detol followed by a good rinse in clean.
I then took it out to the garden, sat down under the sunshade and filled it with tobacco and proceeded to sit back and smoke it.
What an amazing experience it was too, smoking a pipe that was 111 years old, on a warm sunny afternoon while contemplating the lovely Devon countryside that surrounds my house. It was a truly surreal moment.
My next job is going to be trying to research Salmon & Gluckstein Ltd a little more and in particular, if they made the pipes themselves or they were made by another company. So I guess there will probably be an addition to this post in the future.
It is an 1899 Salmon & Gluckstein. This can be established from the hallmarks on the silver band. The anchor on its side is the Birmingham hallmark the rampant lion is the standard mark which confirms that the article is in fact of the correct quality and one paw, raised, facing left denotes a standard of 92.5% pure silver. The script lowercase ‘z’ indicates a date of 1899; this is further substantiated by the anchor on its side since the Birmingham hallmark cycle for 1875 to 1899 normally had the anchor on its side.
Next we come to the maker which is marked S&G Ld within an oval (although this can only just be made out when looked at very closely). S&G Ld was the mark for Salmon and Gluckstein Ltd. The business was started in 1855 and operated from their first shop in Crown Street, London, UK. From those humble beginnings, Salmon and Gluckstein Ltd went on to become the world's largest retail tobacconist, owning 140 shops in 1901.
As some of you may be aware, a hostile takeover bid of British tobacco companies by the US A.T Co. led by its founder J B Duke, forced the forming of the Imperial Tobacco (an amalgamation of the foremost tobacco companies in Britain) in October 1901. Salmon and Gluckstein Ltd was seen as a great advantage to bring into the ‘fold’ and was bought by Imperial Tobacco in 1902. Although it was now a part of Imperial Tobacco, Salmon & Gluckstein Ltd continued to trade with that name until the brand was dropped in 1955.
Whilst looking all this up I cam across an interesting bit of trivia for Salmon & Gluckstein. During WW2, British aircrews and sailors referred to the German pocket battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau as Salmon and Gluckstein respectively.
As you can see from the pictures, the pipe is not in too bad a condition. There are a couple of dinks inside the rim of the bowl, the stem is not original, although looks in keeping, and the silver has been polished frequently, enough to start to wear the hallmark away.
As soon as it arrived, I gave it a good clean and polish with carnauba wax and gently reamed the bowl out as well as giving the stem a bit of a soak in luke-warm water with a bit of Detol followed by a good rinse in clean.
I then took it out to the garden, sat down under the sunshade and filled it with tobacco and proceeded to sit back and smoke it.
What an amazing experience it was too, smoking a pipe that was 111 years old, on a warm sunny afternoon while contemplating the lovely Devon countryside that surrounds my house. It was a truly surreal moment.
My next job is going to be trying to research Salmon & Gluckstein Ltd a little more and in particular, if they made the pipes themselves or they were made by another company. So I guess there will probably be an addition to this post in the future.
