$15 Rare English Pipe Makes News 1946

[Briar Lee]

From Pipe Lovers magazine November 1946


PIPE SEARCH ENDS



LOOKING all over the world for an English made pipe and then finding it in Thayne Robertson's Boise (Idaho) Pipe Shop was the experience recently of Lord Inverchapel, Great Britain's Ambassador to the United States.

The diplomat, left above, was accompanied by J. McDonald Gordon, center, who is counsellor to the British Embasy in Washington. "I used to buy pipes by the gross in London's Piccadilly Circus before the w ar," said Inver chapel. "Ever since I came to the States last May I have been searching for one of these pipes, and I am glad that at last I have found one."

The veteran of more than 40 years in Britain's diplomatic service—whose pre war stock of 30 pipes was down to four on his arrival here—outfitted himself complete with several ounces of imported English pipe tobacco as well as a new tobacco pouch.
Lord Inverchapel, better known in world capitals as Sir Archibald Clark- Kerr, related that he used to give lots of pipes away as presents.


Robertson, owner of the pipe shop, said "They bought the two best English pipes I had. They were priced at $15 each, or nearly four pounds in English money. And don't let anyone tell you the Ambassador doesn't know his pipes. He's an expert on the subject."

Previously Scottish-born Lord Inverchapel had remarked how the price of pipes had gone up. He said he formerly paid the equivalent of 50 cents in American money for similar pipes, but now noticed the price was up to $10.

"The ambassador was sure happy to find all the pipes I had," explained Robertson. "He was reluctant to leave, but the members of his staff kept re minding him that he had other engage ments."

Robertson said the diplomat was "real particular about the kind of stem he selected. He needed a very narrow stem to fit his teeth."

The diplomat was in the Idaho capital on his nationwide tour to see the coun try. "Now I'm glad I made the trip," he declared. "Otherwise I should never have found these pipes."

——

It is a pity that Lord Inverchapel did not Reach for the Stars and buy the World’s Finest Pipe, the Lee Five Star Grade at $25 in dozens of shapes sure to please his Lordship.

However his English pipes, not named in the article but London Made no doubt, hopefully gave him satisfactory service.

 

[mso489]

Great article from my birth year. Fifteen bucks was a price in those days. Those fellas would be appalled at what we pay for a pipe these days. Remember, England had just been through the war and the Blitz, and hadn't had access to briar for the duration. It took England a long time to get its economic footing; they were still struggling economically into the 1950's.

 

[OzPiper]

From Pipe Lovers magazine November 1946
PIPE SEARCH ENDS

"I used to buy pipes by the gross in London's Piccadilly Circus before the war," said Inver chapel.


It is a pity that Lord Inverchapel did not Reach for the Stars and buy the World’s Finest Pipe, the Lee Five Star Grade at $25 in dozens of shapes sure to please his Lordship.

Thankfully he did explain that he was in the habit of giving away lots of the pipes as gifts.

I was trying to picture him ruminating through his pipes, a gross (=144) at a time

Obviously the merits of Lee "The World's Finest Pipe" was lost on his Lordship. Perhaps he saw that as brash Yankee hyperbole
Or that they did not accord with his British sensibilities nor match his Saville Row suits and Scottish worsteds.

 

[Briar Lee]

Thankfully he did explain that he was in the habit of giving away lots of the pipes as gifts.

I was trying to picture him ruminating through his pipes, a gross (=144) at a time

Obviously the merits of Lee "The World's Finest Pipe" was lost on his Lordship. Perhaps he saw that as brash Yankee hyperbole
Or that they did not accord with his British sensibilities nor match his Saville Row suits and Scottish worsteds.

Perhaps Lord Inverchapel (later Baron Inverchapel) was accompanied on his tour of Idaho and other western states by his ravishingly beautiful and shockingly young wife of Chilean aristocracy, who ordered him as a Christmas present some Pipes by Lee, for Christmas of 1946. She was to become his widow a few years after, but blissfully they were unaware of his impending demise in November 1946. Perhaps the Baron’s pipes are even now for sale, on eBay.

Archibald Clark Kerr, 1st Baron Inverchapel - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

A man who considered himself tougher than Hemingway, should have availed himself of the most masculine of American pipes, those produced by Lee.

 

[Ahi Ka]

I’m genuinely blown away (not being sarcastic) by your ability to weave Lee pipes into any thread. I’ve tried to do the same with marmite but it hasn’t caught on

 

[OzPiper]

A man who considered himself tougher than Hemingway, should have availed himself of the most masculine of American pipes, those produced by Lee.

Unsubstantiated and perhaps wistful thinking on your part !

His Lordship may have thought it infra dig to smoke a pipe without a history of at least several generations steeped in the craft. Or he might just have a preference with a brand with which he was familiar.

This was in 1946 when the British upper and moneyed classes had an inherent sense of superiority (rightly or wrongly) in all things British.

Years ago I befriended and elderly English lady who migrated to Australia when she was in her 80s as she was childless and no longer had any living relatives in England. Her one surviving relative was a brother-in-law living in Sydney at the time. She certainly came from a moneyed background, as she would shop at Woolworths in he ermine coat and diamonds the size of small pebbles. She told the story of how her husband wanted to do a motoring tour of America on his retirement (in the '60s). So he arranged for their car to be shipped over with them on the Queen Mary so "he would be driving something familiar, rather than those monstrous machines they had over there". She was quite delighted that everywhere they stopped, they had all these people coming over to chat and ask them about their quaint car.

But I digress.

"Holy moly, Batman. I think I may have caught that damn rumination bug"

 

[ssjones]

Its hard to imagine, the writer of this article would leave out the brand of British pipe. It would be like saying (to me), that he bought the car of his dreams, but then not mention what car, or take a photo. But that shows you the casual disregard American pipe smokers had for what we not consider the classic British makers. In those magazines from the late 1940's, there is not mention of Dunhill, Comoy's, GBD, Barlings, etc.

I bet the shop owner tried to convince him to go with a Kaywoodie!

 

[Briar Lee]

Its hard to imagine, the writer of this article would leave out the brand of British pipe. It would be like saying (to me), that he bought the car of his dreams, but then not mention what car, or take a photo. But that shows you the casual disregard American pipe smokers had for what we not consider the classic British makers. In those magazines from the late 1940's, there is not mention of Dunhill, Comoy's, GBD, Barlings, etc.

I bet the shop owner tried to convince him to go with a Kaywoodie!

This morning I’m smoking a Weber Golden Walnut grade bulldog, that was about a 6 or so dollar pipe in Robertson’s Boise pipe shop, the day soon to be Baron Inverchapel came calling.

That American pipe was made much more by machinery than an English pipe, and it’s most likely smaller in size, than the average English pipe, but in 1946 $5 bought a Kaywoodie Super Grain that really did have, super grain, and for $10 a Kaywoodie Flame Grain really did have awesomely beautiful flame grain.

If you valued smooth grain beauty over hand made righteousness of construction an American pipe made a lot of sense in 1946, because of the costliness of imported English luxury goods. America protected Kaywoodie and Weber with protective tariffs.

I thought it interesting Lord Inverchapel’s lament he used to buy cheap ( machine made) pipes for fifty cents and now the price had gone up to ten dollars.

That, was likely a back handed slap at the ten dollar Kaywoodie Flame Grain, which was mostly machine made. But in Wally Frank’s 1946 catalogs you could still buy fifty cent pipes, but they’d not have been likely to have been seen in the Boise Pipe Shop.

Robertson had to pay the rent, too.

He sure had a friend at the local newspaper in Boise, that’s for certain.

 

[jguss]

The story is charming but doubtful in one respect. If the Ambassador ever really did buy pipes for fifty cents they certainly weren’t the same pipes selling for ten dollars in 1946. English pipes in some cases doubled in price after the war (American pipes frequently remained flat; the Kaywoodie Flame Grain is an example), but in no case went up twenty fold. Rather than accuse the “previously Scottish-born” (what an astonishingly odd phrase) Ambassador of lying or dementia the most likely culprit is the customary sloppiness of a journalist with deadlines to meet and more important things on his mind (eg locating the nearest bar to Thayne Robertson’s shop). And of course Lord Inverchapel admits his last large scale purchases were made “before the war” but neglects to state which one; perhaps the Crimean?

As for the dichotomy proposed between American pipes and English ones you’d be hard pressed to find any of the great English brands made entirely by hand (they are called “factory pipes” after all). The degree to which machinery was used in the manufacture of any given pipe is a slippery subject on which George or Jesse may choose to dilate, but it’s hard to distinguish between Dunhills and Kaywoodies on this basis; the distinction would be somewhat Jesuitical if not Talmudic. Certainly an array of machines were used at most steps in the manufacturing process in both companies and at almost all of their competitors.

Finally I couldn’t agree more about the bliss of not knowing your future; if someone offered me a sealed envelope with the date of my death enclosed I’d burn it on the spot.

 

[Cappy]

Can't believe the outrageous price of $15!

 

[sablebrush52]

People have their eccentric passions.

 

[kcghost]

I think his Lordship problems with prices probably stems from the recession the Brits were going through at the time. Yeah, 50 cents is a little silly.

 

[Briar Lee]

Sitting on my back porch (deck) by the light of the silvery moon, many miles from my boyhood home near Bug Tussle, enjoying a massive Big Boy Marxman full of Sutliff Heavy English, that was carved at 27 West 24th Street NYC, from a huge plateaux of the finest, long seasoned and patiently aged Algerian briar harvested by Berber desert tribesmen scaling windswept rocky crags overlooking the balmy Mediterranean, I realize that all I lack that Lord (soon to be Baron) Inverchapel had that I don’t is a shockingly young and ravenously beautiful aristocratic Latin American socialite wife half my age.

But I’ve had one at least as fancy now about half my adult life, and I didn’t have to marry her to allay suspicions I secretly sought the love that dares not breathe it’s name.

Lord Inverchapel’s pre war best English make $15 pipe was also a huge sand blasted hunk of the best Algerian briar, like mine.

And I just bought another one today for fifteen bucks delivered, that will be a smooth finished version of this one when I escort my wife to some social affair that demands a dress up pipe.



But the only papers I’ll make buying my largest sized standard $15 D size Marxman are this forum.

Lord Inverchapel could have bought a New York City made Marxman the same size and quality for the same fifteen American dollars and wouldn’t have had to have ridden the train.

 

[HRPufnstuf]

I’m genuinely blown away (not being sarcastic) by your ability to weave Lee pipes into any thread. I’ve tried to do the same with marmite but it hasn’t caught on

Vegemite FTW!

 

[Briar Lee]

Being “previously Scottish Ozark American” born myself like any other frugal Scotsman I appreciate a bargain.

What made an excellent pipe for Lord (soon to be Baron) Inverchapel in 1946 is still available cheaply today as previously owned larger pre 1954 Algerian briar pipes, which usually aren’t marked as Algerian briar.

In 1946 it must have been commonly understood that the best smoking yet most difficult to work and ugliest briar came from French Algeria.

Marx and Dunhill and Barling and other top of the line makers used Algerian broad but they weren’t proud of it,,,yet.

Algerian briar smoked the best because like a vacuum bottle it was full of the most dead air. It came from the most inhospitable and barren place on the rim of the Mediterranean where large enough heather shrubs clung to life on rocky hills, gathered by dangerously poor and angry men who started killing French colonists in 1954.

The very best Algerian plateaux blocks of briar were likely seasoned and aged a decade before they were made into pipes.

Sometime in the sixties the supply ran low.

If it says ALGERIAN BRIAR FRANCE it’s likely old stock, after 1954.

That best of the best briar is still there on those rocky hills in Algeria.

But the organized purchasing of it by the French stopped about 1954.

 

[greeneyes]

The pipe would not have been mentioned, as the source is Pipe Lover's magazine. For reasons I assume must have to do with advertising, the brand of pipe (and tobacco) is very, very rarely mentioned within the magazine's pages. Quite conspicuously so.

 

[Briar Lee]

The pipe would not have been mentioned, as the source is Pipe Lover's magazine. For reasons I assume must have to do with advertising, the brand of pipe (and tobacco) is very, very rarely mentioned within the magazine's pages. Quite conspicuously so.

In 1929, when he was 47 and she only 19, our man Lord Inverchapel married one of the most beautiful young women on the planet who was the daughter of one of the richest men in the world. The press was thereafter interested what adventures the husband of Maria Teresa Diaz Salas (Lady Inverchapel) was up to, which always involved dashing younger men and ribald stories, and eventually his ruin when the Cambridge Five turned out to be Russian spies.

The Life and Surprizing Adventures of Archibald Kerr, British Diplomat

In his head was born brilliant ideas on how to arrange the world. He considered war the greatest evil in the world. He was sure that this evil can be defeated by the power of the word. He was friends with Kings and Generalissimos, with writers and politicians. He suggested the right decisions to...

books.google.com

Radical Diplomat

"At the high tide of Britain's twentieth century power, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr reached the pinnacle of his remarkable and controversial career. He served in vital diplomatic posts and was a major figure in determining and executing British foreign policy. An Australian-born Scot, he joined the...

books.google.com

It pays to be well dressed and fastidious with your selection of pipes.

 

[PipeIT]

@Briar Lee your Avatar looks somewhat like Archibald Clark Kerr.

 

[Briar Lee]

@Briar Lee your Avatar looks somewhat like Archibald Clark Kerr.

View attachment 256701

Archibald Clark Kerr was Lord (later Baron) Inverchapel. My avatar is a photo of him.

Damn he looks Scottish.

 

[PipeIT]

Archibald Clark Kerr was Lord (later Baron) Inverchapel. My avatar is a photo of him.

Damn he looks Scottish.

Oh wow, didn’t realize it was a photo of him, till you said something. At first I thought it was possibly a younger you.

P.S. Why did you pick an avatar of him, I’m curious?