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  1. jguss

    Where’s Harry D. Holmes When You Need Him?

    A textbook example of the infamous Bad Penny. We live in evil times.
  2. jguss

    1940s Pipes by Lee Catalog

    Yes and yes, although Lee was co-founder as well as president of Barnaby. I have a rather bulky file on Singer but no time for the foreseeable future to organize and post it.
  3. jguss

    1940s Pipes by Lee Catalog

    Absolutely. I didn’t know there was any doubt about this. Here’s one of many items verifying that it was a Lee model, an extract from the 1946 edition of the RTDA:
  4. jguss

    Interesting Completed Ebay Auctions - British Pipes

    Could be right, but I’ve often heard that in the old days when someone bought a pipe the tobacconist reached under the counter and put it in any box of the same brand that was lying at hand. If true a box can be both original to the pipe (at time of sale) and not original to the pipe (at time...
  5. jguss

    Dating a Barling spigot pipe.

    Thank you. So as you probably know the revised shape numbering system didn’t exist until late 1962. Your shape number at that time meant: 5 = Ex Large 29 = Dublin 1 = saddle bit with short bite length In the late sixties Barling offered a sterling silver spigot version of its models and...
  6. jguss

    My Civic Duty to Smoke a Civic Pipe?

    How irritating that pipe makers were so inconsiderate as to leave incomplete and occasionally inconsistent information behind.
  7. jguss

    Dating a Barling spigot pipe.

    I too think the orientation of the anchor is meaningless. Stamping could be and was occasionally sloppy. Here are the date code images from the Birmingham Assay Office website: And here’s an authentic 1943 date stamp on a sterling silver napkin ring: The image you posted lacks the...
  8. jguss

    Interesting Completed Ebay Auctions - British Pipes

    Wonderful purchase Jesse, congratulations. Made about 1947 (or given the lingering impact of the War perhaps a couple of years later) if the box is original to the pipe.
  9. jguss

    My Civic Duty to Smoke a Civic Pipe?

    Hey Jesse, if you look at pages 7-9 is the Civic Royale listed there?
  10. jguss

    My Civic Duty to Smoke a Civic Pipe?

    Actually your pipe could be even older. I did a little more digging and found that the Civic Royale was actually first introduced in the Fall of 1935. Like many models offered by British briar pipe manufacturers the Royale disappeared from price and brand lists early in WW2, a casualty of the...
  11. jguss

    My Civic Duty to Smoke a Civic Pipe?

    Since you say it’s stamped London Made it was manufactured sometime during the roughly seventeen year period between the introduction of the Royale in or slightly before 1953 and Civic’s relocation to Essex by 1970. The Royale was, in its day, one of the company’s top tier offerings. This...
  12. jguss

    Old Pipes vs. New Pipes

    I think that’s usually pronounced Yugo.
  13. jguss

    Old Pipes vs. New Pipes

    The apprentice system survived in England at businesses large and small well into the 20th century. It was so prevalent in the briar pipe industry as to apparently be universal. Here’s a sampling of now forgotten briar pipe workers who were 12 to 15 in the 1921 English census: Note that...
  14. jguss

    Old Pipes vs. New Pipes

    One quick answer: a learning curve that generally started at 14.
  15. jguss

    French? Hallmark Dating - Comoy

    Pipedia is a wonderful resource but is (as is almost inevitable) frequently incomplete or incorrect. As you presumably know Comoy is said to have come from Jura to London with his brothers in 1879 to establish a pipe business. This assertion was made many times during his lifetime and beyond...
  16. jguss

    French? Hallmark Dating - Comoy

    Agreed, whatever they are they aren’t English silver hallmarks Agreed again, here are a few typical examples from the early years of the 20th century: There were a variety of hallmarks with varying cartouches used from the 1880s on, all as you say different from the one on the OP’s...
  17. jguss

    Sublime Tobacco - Compton Mackenzie

    A nice reminder that our posts are all messages in bottles. We never know when or if they’ll be found.
  18. jguss

    A long lunch today

    I remember trying Babycham decades ago. After drinking some I threw up a little in my mouth. Is that normal?
  19. jguss

    A long lunch today

    When I was in high school in the seventies we were connoisseurs, and greatly preferred choice vintages of Blue Nun and Giacobazzi to Boone’s Farm.
  20. jguss

    A long lunch today

    I just went to my 40th grad school reunion a couple of weeks ago. I enjoyed seeing old friends (at least those not otherwise occupied being dead) but the food was execrable. Clearly I should have joined you & your friends instead.