Sears Roebuck / Early Kaywoodie - Uncommon?

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May 8, 2017
1,593
1,627
Sugar Grove, IL, USA
About a year ago, I acquired this Sears Roebuck "Drinkless" pipe, obviously made by Kaywoodie. I wasn't into Kaywoodie pipes at that time, but being a Chicagoan, I've tried to add Chicago-area pipes to my collection. So I have a Marshall Field's (Comoy's) and this Sears, along with a couple early Dr. Grabows. This pipe is an early Kaywoodie, as it has a push stem, 2-digit shape, and a larger 4-hole stinger. Have any of you Kaywoodie Fans seen a Sears Roebuck-branded Kaywoodie? My Google searches have come up empty.
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mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
Great find. I'm from the Chicago area too, and remember Marshall Fields before they were bought by Macy's. Those house pipes with department store stamps are unique. For a long time, I had an L.L. Bean house pipe, which may have been a Dr. Grabow. Someone on Forums has a Disneyland house pipe; imagine that.

 

agnosticpipe

Lifer
Nov 3, 2013
3,332
3,413
In the sticks in Mississippi
Very cool Kaywoodie! I suspect that some really nice pipes were sold in department stores in the past. Speaking of department store pipes, at a swap meet in So. Ca. about 35 years ago, I bought a Charatan Supreme stamped May Co. which was a rather nice department store in Ca. for a number of years. I paid $5 for the pipe not knowing what it was other than a Charatan and brought it to my local pipe shop. He told me it was a $200 pipe! I thought he must be joking, but he said no, it was a top of the line Charatan. It had nice straight grain, but the department store stamping threw me off. I ended up selling it later because I felt that the May Co. stamp devalued it. I guess that some nice pipes were sold in stores that we would never expect.

 
May 8, 2017
1,593
1,627
Sugar Grove, IL, USA
Coincidentally, the Marshall Field pipe looked really familiar. It was a dead ringer for my very first pipe -- a Comoy's prince. Then, I discovered that the shape numbers matched, so it's obviously made by Comoy's. Comparing the two, I'd say the grain on the Comoy's branded pipe was superior to the Marshall Field's, but both are fine pipes.
One of my favorite pipes is a C. B. Perkins (an East coast tobaccanist) Jubilee diplomat, which I subsequently figured out was made by Dunhill using the same shape number methodology. Perhaps unfortunately, it wasn't until I had already opened up the draft that I figured it out. Maybe it smokes better now, but I'll never know.

 

didimauw

Moderator
Staff member
Jul 28, 2013
9,894
31,608
34
Burlington WI
Awesome pipe! Slightly irrelevant to this forum, but relevant to the topic; I have my great grandfathers hunting knife from Sears and Roebuck, on a homemade plaque with his 1920s Grabow. They both show astonishing wear, the pipe however was deemed unfixable, when I sent it for repair, due to the stinger seized in the shank.

 
May 8, 2017
1,593
1,627
Sugar Grove, IL, USA
One of the guys at my Briar, Bourbon, Beer, and Brats party brought a pipe that had belonged to his grandfather. Sadly, both of mine passed away before I was born, but I am certain my maternal grandfather smoked a pipe. I would dearly love to have one of them, regardless of condition.
I am drawn to pipe collecting for many reasons, but history is a huge part of it.

 

andrew

Lifer
Feb 13, 2013
3,042
400
Definitely made by kaywoodie it has the kaywoodie stamp

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Also early Kaywoodies were more expensive than Dunhills at the time. That looks to be in beautiful shape, was it restored or did you get it in that condition? Also Sears is probably going bankrupt this year so it will be even more historical. I would imagine there were many, many of them made but have never seen one. It looks like a perfect flake pipe.

 

buroak

Lifer
Jul 29, 2014
1,867
14
I keep finding all kinds of oddities among the early Kaywoodies. I am glad someone else is finding them, too. I love that pipe!

 

beefeater33

Lifer
Apr 14, 2014
4,063
6,119
Central Ohio
I am drawn to pipe collecting for many reasons, but history is a huge part of it.

You and me both, Brother.............

That is one cool kaywoodie! I've never seen one like it............ Cherish that one!......... :puffy:

 

fishnbanjo

Lifer
Feb 27, 2013
3,030
63
I have had more than my share of Kaywoodie pipes come through my hands over the years but none with department store stamping. The three I still own are very good smokers, the Allbriar I'm smoking in a post here, another old one with the Kaywoodie mark embedded in the briar shank and a Kaywoodie metal pipe. I do have six I'm sending out next month to someone who does restorations which are for her the other pipe in that batch is a T. Christiano which she will being restoring for me.

banjo

 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
House pipes are detective stories for pipe smokers, figuring out who made them. Some are somewhat easy to identify, others almost impossible. My recent mystery is a gift estate pipe, a freehand stamped "Thompson" and 'West Germany". I am reasonably sure that the Thompson is Thomson Cigar, so I wrote them, but no response. This was probably too long ago, and all of those who might remember are retired or otherwise gone. To further abolish the trail, I removed the unusual P-lip looking stem and replaced it with with a tortoise shell acrylic similarly bent stem with a fishtail bit, so that evidence is gone. The old stem was oxidizing after rigorous polishing to a shine and one smoke. My first pipe was a Tinder Box St. Ives, which I am convinced is French, probably Chacom, with a little advice from Tinder Box headquarters; they apparently still have an in-house historian who has some clues about the past. If I were the King of Pipes, I would require all pipe makers and pipe tobacco blenders keep retirees on some sort of retainer, paid on a modest per-letter basis, to answer historical questions. Or if that is beyond hope, perhaps retirees could be appointed historians emeritus and asked to answer such inquiries, as an honorific.

 

fitzy

Lifer
Nov 13, 2012
2,937
27
NY
Wow very cool pipe.
I love that shape. Seems to be very similar to a 706 or 105 from Savinelli.

 
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