Geeez, I'm blushing after that endorsement!
Hi drezz,
You've asked a good question. The simple answer can be applied to just about anything and it is this, item "A" is worth x because someone is willing to pay that. Let's get more specific with regard to the Barlings that started this thread.
These Family Era Barlings are unsmoked, which incurs a premium price from collectors. The Barling company was a relatively small operation and they didn't create a large presence in the US, so the pipes are comparatively rare on the market. When you talk about Barling, you're talking abut the history of British pipemaking. To put this in perspective, Barling had been in the pipe business for nearly a century before Dunhill started operations.
Under the family's management, Barling focused on making flawless smooth pipes from the very finest briar obtainable, carved to very exacting specifications. Unlike their competitors, Barling oversaw every aspect of the process from the ground to the store counter. They conducted their own harvesting operations in Algeria, going after very specific wood that they felt provided a superior smoking experience. Barling controlled the curing, cutting and shaping of their pipes, and unlike their competition, they made ALL of their own product after 1906. The pipes were handmade. The internal engineering was always spot on. They largely made pipes to order. Coming from a silversmithing background, their sterling fitments were of the highest caliber. Barling was the perfectionist's perfectionist.
Absolutely no shortcuts were allowed. If a Barling carver became available he was quickly snapped up by the competition. Maintaining this level of fanatical perfectionism was expensive, and that cost is probably what eventually doomed them. After nearly 150 years of pipemaking activity the Barling family sold their company to Finlay, their largest client. The product gradually diminished in quality in an effort to increase profitability.
In their day, Barling was innovative, pioneering the use of push tenons when other makes were still using bone screw-in tenons. They produced a number of specialized bit designs and their patented flat bit stems were widely considered to be the most comfortable available. These are the precursor to the modern thin bits. Outside of the British pipe industry, Dunhill was the best known of the British factory makes, but inside the industry Barling was the 800 lb gorilla.
So does any of this make a Barling worth $1000? If you're not interested in high grade pipes, or pipes with a long history, or of the finest possible quality, then probably not. Even if you are interested in such things, something else may have more appeal to you. The case can be made that no pipe is worth $1000, much less many thousands. But if you're a Barling collector with the means to do so, you'll pay gladly.
It's like the advice Will Rogers offered on investing:
Buy land. God ain't making any more of it.
For me, these aren't of interest. I'm far more a smoker than a collector. I do have a few pieces that I don't smoke. By and large, I'm not interested in buying unsmoked pieces and paying that premium. Also, while unsmoked, these are hardly in mint condition. The stems have been buffed enough so that the Barling crossed stem logo is largely obliterated. Even if I were collecting unsmoked examples, these would not be worth that kind of money to me because of the condition. But that's just me. Presumably the buyer is happy with his purchase at that price or he would not have made that bid.
On another note:
Hi Leslie,
I haven't made a formal study of Barling pipe bags, but I can tell you a little bit about them. Pipes that weren't cased came boxed with a chamois bag that also had a flap over the open end. The chamois bag was in use into the 1940's. Some of these had the script Barling logo, others were plain. These were phased out and replaced with the red satin pipe bag which had the Barling logo printed in metallic gold, or a chamois-like buff colored bag with the logo printed in red ink. Later still, probably after the company was sold to Finlay, a black satin bag with a silver metallic logo came into use. Barling also used a red velvet bag with a draw string for their top-of-the-line Presentation grade in the late 1970's.
The Barling Design stamp on the underside of the stem indicates that your pipe was made between 1950 and early 1962. Barling was justly famous for their pots, and the size "L", for large, should be a terrific smoker.
From the description you give, it sounds to me like the sock is original to the pipe as it's from that period. In later periods, the year 1812 was printed inside the loop of the "g".
