Dunhill Birth Year 1946?

mso489 · Sep 6, 2013

One aspiration of pipe smokers is to own a Dunhill manufactured in their birth year.

My pipe collecting has not gravitated toward Dunhills, for reasons of price and whim,

but I have wondered: Since I was born in 1946, was Dunhill back in business and in

custody of quality briar by 1946, enough to be once again making quality pipes?

World War II disrupted importation of briar from the Med for years. Also, England

suffered a long economic and financial recovery that lasted even into the 1950's.

The shortage of briar caused the U.S. to make pipes out of non-briar woods like

Mountain Laurel, and some synthetic composites as well. So where there 1946

Dunhill birth year pipes, and what was their quality? This isn't PAD; it's historical

curiosity.

smokeybear · Sep 6, 2013

Dunhill Bruyere Patent Sold on Ebay
Interesting after reading you post i googles 1946 dunhull pipes and most of them are made of Bruyere. That proves all you just wrote i guess. very interesting.

kcghost · Sep 6, 2013

Bruyere refers to the finish not the wood. It is a brown under stain covered by a dark red top stain.

smokeybear · Sep 6, 2013

Oh haha ok thanks for clarifying that for me I thought it was like saying pleather which is imitation leather lol funny thing is I don't think it's the first time I make that incorrect assumption.

tbradsim1 · Sep 6, 2013

I have a 1943 ODA RB Billard, they survived in the war torn years, mine is my birth year, wasn"t cheap.

dochudson · Sep 6, 2013

if you happen across a 1949 while you are looking for a '46 let me know.

mso489 · Sep 6, 2013

People forget how long it took England to get back on its feet. My wife who was also born in 1946 used to

send care packages to her pen pal, a young British girl, in the 1950's. They were rationing food and

commodities years after the war ended, and London was chopped up by the Blitz for a decade or more.

They saved some of the damage for historical places, but others just didn't get fixed for a while. This makes

me wonder if, in order to keep even reduced production going, Dunhill had to smuggle in briar blocks. It can't

have been easy. When I see lists of available Dunhills, there's a gap during the war years and after.

fishfly · Mar 16, 2015

I know this is an old thread, but I was looking for the same information and came across both this thread and an article in the April 3, 1946 Chicago Tribune announcing that the first shipment of Briar for Pipes since the end of WWII arrived in the U. S. from Italy.
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1946/04/03/page/21/article/first-shipment-of-briar-for-pipes-arrives-in-u-s
I doubt that I'll every find one, U. S. or otherwise, in my price range, but at least some pipes were probably made that year.
(And my family was sending care packages to relatives in Italy well in the 1950's).

agnosticpipe · Mar 16, 2015

Not sure this will help much, but I was born in 1946 too. I half toyed with the birth year pipe idea for a while, and then decided that it would pure luck to find a Dunhill in that year that I could actually afford. Then I came across a Peterson on ebay and after doing a little research found that it was made between the years of 1945 and 1947. (most likely) I won the auction and restored the pipe which I decided would be my birth year pipe, and it was less than $50 too.
So if you can't find a Dunhill to fill your birth year pipe dreams, look for a Peterson birth year era pipe!

darwin · Mar 16, 2015

Bruyere was/is a Dunhill proprietary name, like Shell Briar, or Tanshell, it signified a particular style and finish. It derives from the French word "bruyère," which means, erm, briar."
Briar is actually an Anglicization of the French word bruyère which means heather, as in the white heather shrub whose dense root wood supplies the raw material for briar pipe bowls. White heather grows in a lot of different places but only that grown around the rim of the Mediterranean is generally considered suitable for making pipe bowls.

checotah · Jul 5, 2015

Another 1946 vintage here. Born Jan. 4th, so I guess I'm in the leadership role for Baby Boomers. I. too, have thought of a birth year pipe, but only occasionally search, to no avail thus far. As mentioned, an increasingly rare commodity, kinda like us. :lol:
I've mentioned before that I have my father's Bryson that my mother gave him as a "Welcome Home" gift in 1945 when he returned from the European theatre. Given that I was born not quite 8 months later (preemie), I consider it my "conception" year pipe, which actually has more meaning because it was my father's.
Either or you other '46 Vintage guys come up with a birth year pipe?

johnnyreb · Jul 5, 2015

It's nice that you have that pipe of your father's & know the story behind it, checotah.

iamn8 · Jul 5, 2015

My hardest fought for Dunhill was from my fathers birth year, 1944. 'Twas hard but I found one... Rough shape stem but quite nice!

fishnbanjo · Jul 5, 2015

One thing that is probably not very well known is rubber was a wartime necessity so it could not be used as stem material. Dunhill used horn for stems during the war with a note that when the war was over and production returned to normal the owner of the pipe could return it to Dunhill where a rubber stem would be fitted and the pipe returned. If you have a wartime Dunhill and it sports a horn stem it is original to the pipe.

banjo

dmcmtk · Jul 5, 2015

Dunhill used horn for stems during the war with a note that when the war was over and production returned to normal the owner of the pipe could return it to Dunhill where a rubber stem would be fitted and the pipe returned. If you have a wartime Dunhill and it sports a horn stem it is original to the pipe.

Exactly so. I have a "Loring WW II" pipe with a vulcanite stem and a 6 date mark, but this refers to when the stem was replaced in 1946, as Banjo points out.

mso489 · Jul 5, 2015

What a great historical pipe note about the horn stems, with assurances of replacement after the war was over! I admit I haven't looked very hard for "my" 1946 Dunhill with several excellent pipes as gifts, and a few PAD attacks. Maybe I'll find one in a remote antique store fitted with a horn stem, unsmoked in an original box for $30. Right.

kcghost · Jul 6, 2015

Occasionally I get the urge to get a birth year Dunhill (1947) but there are very few of those and they are straight stems. Oh, and very expensive.

fishnbanjo · Jul 6, 2015

kcghost, like you I prefer a straight stem pipe and I'd rather keep it a Group 4 or smaller as well. No matter how hard I tried a Dunhill form 1950 always alluded me be it by auction or private sale. This 1948 Group 3 Pot Dead Root DRR C-EE with fantastic angel hair like grain became available at an excellent price so I grabbed it and it's a splendid smoker.

Of corse 2 1/2 years later 2 beautiful Shell Innertube's Group 2 became available the same week, one from 1950, the other was owned by Sir Alfred's grandson, Richard Dunhill, happy to report I own them both, cheers.

banjo

iamn8 · Jul 7, 2015

Here is my '44 w/original horn stem...

okiescout · Jul 7, 2015

if you happen across a 1949 while you are looking for a '46 let me know.
Ditto for 1948!

Dunhill Birth Year 1946?

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