1940s Pipes by Lee Catalog

[Briar Lee]

I'd like to see the stars on HIS pipes!

Baron Inverchapel was a bon vivant, rake, and might have supported his many vices and gorgeous young women on his arm by payments from Stalin.

He died before his reputation was completely ruined, by his association with Guy Burgess.

Guy Burgess - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Here’s to Baron Inverchapel, wherever you are.

 

[anotherbob]

Lee had a huge cache of briar, probably a large bank loan, a brand new factory and the plan was to market gold star pipes.

For $1 there was a Briarlee.

The first Gold Coast pipes were $3.50.

The first One Star Grades were also $3.50.

Why settle for a mere Gold Coast when $3.50 bought the exact same custom shape as the top priced factory pipe on earth, the $25 Five Star?

This explains only early advertisements listing a $3.50 Star Grade One Star.

Why buy a Pontiac if a Buick was the same price, if you custom ordered a Buick?

It’s also neat to know in 1946 the first $15 Four Stars came only in natural finish.

Later on Lee added a tan option.

Four Stars are rare as hen’s teeth.

The first Three Star grades only came in “Virgin”. That had to be a very light stain, one that looked natural.

The 1946 Two Star grades were “Star Grained” stained. I have one, and it’s among the prettiest of all my Lees, stained a reddish brown.

I think Lee was an honest, but scared man.

Oh, I so hope he made a million and cashed in his chips!

We know his company lived until he made and sold this exquisite $25 5 pointed star Five Star.

View attachment 161891


I’m more convinced than ever, Lee made the switch to a five point star to improve his pipes when the $5 Two Star doubled in retail price.

The rubber stems on the 5 pointed star pipes have noticeably higher polish, even in a Two Star.

or it could mean the worst and he called it virgin as in not spending more guess that explains why you never had a girlfriend. You know i speculated something much worse by the way.

 

[AppalachianPipe92]

Love seeing these old catalogues. Very cool

 

[Briar Lee]

or it could mean the worst and he called it virgin as in not spending more guess that explains why you never had a girlfriend. You know i speculated something much worse by the way.

Virgin implies a natural finish.

Lee had little modesty.

Here’s my speciation

All the Briarlees, the Gold Coasts, and one and two stars got walnut reddish stained.

Three Star and above no or little stain.

Later, as his briar stash was picked over, he added a middle stain called tan.

 

[Briar Lee]

Searching on eBay for a Gold Coast pipe brought up three offers of old match book covers, with no matches.

People collect everything, I swear.

Goldblatt had 15 stores, mainly around Chicago in 1946. It was a sort of K-Mart or Walmart type discount store.

Goldblatt's - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Note no association with Lee pipes on the matches.

Goldblatt’s stores had the exclusive right to sell dollar Gold Coast pipes.

This means Lee’s early “one star era” attempt to get $3.50 Gold Coasts to dealers failed. Goldblatt’s wound up exclusive dealers of the same pipe reduced to a dollar.

 

[Parsimonious Piper]

The Star Grades may have been.

This was in response to

didimauw said:
I was told they were mail order only!

The catalog shows a number of different displays for Lee branded/Star Grade pipes, so if they were mail order only, that certainly wasn’t the intent at the time this was distributed.

 

[Parsimonious Piper]

This is later on in 1946, because One Stars are advertised. One Stars disappear soon after.

The one-stars didn’t disappear too soon. They made it at least past the transition to 5-point stars. Here’s one of mine:
The great unknown is when, exactly, that change occurred. I’ve heard old timers put it in the 1950-1955 timeframe, but have never seen documentation to make it anything more than conjecture. The only dated mention I’m aware of re Lee is in the August 1946 Pipe Lovers magazine article on metal pipes. Given publishing lead times, Lee may have been well established by then because the article doesn’t refer to them as newcomers in any way.

The metal-shafted Trailblazer from that article is the only Lee I’ve seen that had no stars at all. It came in at least two configurations.

 

[jguss]

I hate to dive in and out again but this is a very busy time for me so I'll just add a few quick remarks. First, as Parsimonious Piper says the catalog (a clean copy of which was put on Chris Keene's site many years ago and remains accessible) features what are clearly promotional materials that are point of purchase displays for retailer use. That's how pipes were sold; mail order was typically reserved for promotional pipes. Companies which aspired to be successful players in the industry cultivated distribution channels; Lee of all people knew that. Second, the earliest possible date for the catalog is the latter part of 1951 and more likely it was issued in 1952 (or perhaps a very little later). Third, I'm not sure where the belief that one star pipes disappeared early in the company's history comes from; if someone has evidence I'd love to hear about it. RTDA continues to include one stars in the Pipes by Lee listing at least as late as 1952. Finally, while I have a strong suspicion why this particular catalog was issued I don't believe it can possibly have been the first featuring Pipes by Lee. Before founding his own business Lee had spent many years in the industry focused, at senior levels, on sales and marketing; catalogs for the trade (and occasionally abbreviated ones for consumers) had been a standard promotional tool since the last decades of the 19th century. I find it fantastically unlikely that Lee of all people would have failed to offer one right from the start.

 

[Briar Lee]

I hate to dive in and out again but this is a very busy time for me so I'll just add a few quick remarks. First, as Parsimonious Piper says the catalog (a clean copy of which was put on Chris Keene's site many years ago and remains accessible) features what are clearly promotional materials that are point of purchase displays for retailer use. That's how pipes were sold; mail order was typically reserved for promotional pipes. Companies which aspired to be successful players in the industry cultivated distribution channels; Lee of all people knew that. Second, the earliest possible date for the catalog is the latter part of 1951 and more likely it was issued in 1952 (or perhaps a very little later). Third, I'm not sure where the belief that one star pipes disappeared early in the company's history comes from; if someone has evidence I'd love to hear about it. RTDA continues to include one stars in the Pipes by Lee listing at least as late as 1952. Finally, while I have a strong suspicion why this particular catalog was issued I don't believe it can possibly have been the first featuring Pipes by Lee. Before founding his own business Lee had spent many years in the industry focused, at senior levels, on sales and marketing; catalogs for the trade (and occasionally abbreviated ones for consumers) had been a standard promotional tool since the last decades of the 19th century. I find it fantastically unlikely that Lee of all people would have failed to offer one right from the start.

There are two reasons I thought One Stars were dropped early:

There is more than one advertisement where there is a blank where a one star should be

One stars are ultra rare today

But the reason for one star rarity might be they got used up and tossed.

Query:

If there were lots of Lee store displays, where are they today?

 

[jguss]

If there were lots of Lee store displays, where are they today?

Absence of evidence is not evidence. Not finding something does not prove it didn't exist, just as not seeing it doesn't prove it doesn't exist today.

The position that something never existed because you haven't seen one is untenable. There are countless things that we know existed in the past that are now gone. And there are unquestionably many objects believed to be gone that will yet be found. What survives is a function of many variables, including how many were made, how perishable the object was, how cherished by the possessor, and the vagaries of time.

In the case of Pipes by Lee the blunt fact is that it was a minor brand. The founder struggled for a handful of years before selling out (under the customary guise of a "merger"). Shortly after that he was forced out by the new owners. And shortly after that the brand dwindled to the point where you'd need a microscope (or more accurately the ability to hallucinate at will) to find mentions in trade publications.

Even for many major brands surviving display cases are relatively uncommon. For minor ones they are generally few in number or entirely absent.

But all this is beside the point. The catalog, at least two copies of which have survived, makes it abundantly clear that promotional displays were made, photographed, and available from the company for retail tobacco shops to use. For that matter I've seen trade articles specifically discussing such displays from Pipes by Lee. Here's one example from the fall of 1950:



The materials offered, by the way, were wholly typical of their kind. I have seen hundreds of such objects pictured in thousands of issues of trade journals published here and in the UK.

There is more than one advertisement where there is a blank where a one star should be

As for the one stars, my suspicion is that they were a latish introduction rather than an early one that was subsequently withdrawn. I'm interested in knowing the earliest clearly dateable mention you have of the one star model. Mine is 1948. My guess is that they represent a broadening of the star brand to include cheaper models in response to inadequate overall revenue. But if that's wrong and the model was offered in ab initio I'd be interested in knowing it.

 

[Briar Lee]

Absence of evidence is not evidence. Not finding something does not prove it didn't exist, just as not seeing it doesn't prove it doesn't exist today.

The position that something never existed because you haven't seen one is untenable. There are countless things that we know existed in the past that are now gone. And there are unquestionably many objects believed to be gone that will yet be found. What survives is a function of many variables, including how many were made, how perishable the object was, how cherished by the possessor, and the vagaries of time.

In the case of Pipes by Lee the blunt fact is that it was a minor brand. The founder struggled for a handful of years before selling out (under the customary guise of a "merger"). Shortly after that he was forced out by the new owners. And shortly after that the brand dwindled to the point where you'd need a microscope (or more accurately the ability to hallucinate at will) to find mentions in trade publications.

Even for many major brands surviving display cases are relatively uncommon. For minor ones they are generally few in number or entirely absent.

But all this is beside the point. The catalog, at least two copies of which have survived, makes it abundantly clear that promotional displays were made, photographed, and available from the company for retail tobacco shops to use. For that matter I've seen trade articles specifically discussing such displays from Pipes by Lee. Here's one example from the fall of 1950:

View attachment 162057

The materials offered, by the way, were wholly typical of their kind. I have seen hundreds of such objects pictured in thousands of issues of trade journals published here and in the UK.



As for the one stars, my suspicion is that they were a latish introduction rather than an early one that was subsequently withdrawn. I'm interested in knowing the earliest clearly dateable mention you have of the one star model. Mine is 1948. My guess is that they represent a broadening of the star brand to include cheaper models in response to inadequate overall revenue. But if that's wrong and the model was offered in ab initio I'd be interested in knowing it.

I love somebody who knows more than I do.

Every pencil I own has an eraser and I use them.

If I were a very rich man, I’d own a hundred Dunhills, instead of a hundred Lees.

I always thought One Stars came first, but it’s logical now to me, they came later.

In 1950 Lee was trying to sell a pipe rack and a Lee for $1.98 retail.

Touche!

All the reason we hardly see any One Stars is they had to come along later and failed.

I still hope Lee bought a Packard with air conditioning but it’s looking grimmer for him by the minute.

I feel like I’ve opened a Dear John letter.

Thanks for correcting my error.

Ancient newspapers are introduced into evidence, if they are too old to have been counterfeited.

The evidence of old Lee pipe racks, is just one photo in one 1950 magazine.

Lee had to make both a rack and a pipe to sell, and the merchant had Two and Three Star grades to upgrade a customer to.

The Virgin finish Lee, was likely a One Star.

 

[anotherbob]

Virgin implies a natural finish.

Lee had little modesty.

Here’s my speciation

All the Briarlees, the Gold Coasts, and one and two stars got walnut reddish stained.

Three Star and above no or little stain.

Later, as his briar stash was picked over, he added a middle stain called tan.

you can think one thing and I'll think another.

 

[Briar Lee]

you can think one thing and I'll think another.

Here is what Lee called a Star Grain finish on cheaper Two Star pipes.

No thinking needed.

Here is an example of what might be a Virgin finish Three Star.

There was less stain applied the better the grade.

Eventually a very dark stain was an option.

Those three Lees cost me less than $100, for all three.

Because information about Pipes by Lee is so sparse, the surviving pipes must speak for themselves.

Kaywoodie sold many pipes and Kaywoodie collectors collect Kaywoodie catalogs.


I don’t think a proper “collection” of Lees is possible. None have shape numbers stamped on them. Nearly all are stamped Limited Edition, and they might be, for all we know.

They are surely a bargain, though,

 

[Parsimonious Piper]

As for the one stars, my suspicion is that they were a latish introduction rather than an early one that was subsequently withdrawn. I'm interested in knowing the earliest clearly dateable mention you have of the one star model. Mine is 1948. My guess is that they represent a broadening of the star brand to include cheaper models in response to inadequate overall revenue. But if that's wrong and the model was offered in ab initio I'd be interested in knowing it.

Of the three I have, all are 5–pt, two metal inlay and one stamped, so they were definitely available later. But knowing there might be a 7-pt out there somewhere…

 

[PipeIT]

Thanks for sharing!

 

[sablebrush52]

Second, the earliest possible date for the catalog is the latter part of 1951 and more likely it was issued in 1952 (or perhaps a very little later).

Funny. Not knowing anything else about it, the design, layout, choice of font, etc, fairly screamed early '50's at me.

 

[sablebrush52]

Absence of evidence is not evidence. Not finding something does not prove it didn't exist, just as not seeing it doesn't prove it doesn't exist today.

Sort of like a pre-war Barling catalog...

 

[PipeIT]

Funny. Not knowing anything else about it, the design, layout, choice of font, etc, fairly screamed early '50's at me.

AND, now, we at least know we have three people that smoke Pipes by Lee here, and I still can’t find a really nice one to buy. LOL

I mean Dr. Grabow, Kaywoodie are everywhere and it sure seems like there was as a huge production of Lee at one point, that I would of assumed, more would be out there to buy.

The party continues...

 

[telescopes]

AND, now, we at least know we have three people that smoke Pipes by Lee here, and I still can’t find a really nice one to buy. LOL

I mean Dr. Grabow, Kaywoodie are everywhere and it sure seems like there was as a huge production of Lee at one point, that I would of assumed, more would be out there to buy.

The party continues...

It’s true. Finding a really nice Lee that holds its own with other nice pipes is a challenge. I have only one that fits that bill. The other Lees look fine enough but required a major amount of cleaning and grime removal. However, all of them smoke well and that is there only saving Grace - other than they are relatively easy to re/clock.

 

[Briar Lee]

It’s true. Finding a really nice Lee that holds its own with other nice pipes is a challenge. I have only one that fits that bill. The other Lees look fine enough but required a major amount of cleaning and grime removal. However, all of them smoke well and that is there only saving Grace - other than they are relatively easy to re/clock.

This morning I’m wondering if Lee didn’t discover some other liquid than oil to cure his pipes with.

The briar used for Lee pipes is remarkable only for every one having unremarkable grain.

This Four Star and Two Star set of five pointed stars are actually atypical in that both have better grain than most earlier 7 pointed star Lees.


Lee launched a new business.

He had to have in front of him true luxury grained pipes like this Pre War Weber Golden Walnut that retailed for $5.95


Lees smoke like putting tobacco in a sugar block.

It’s the main reason yet, to own a Lee,,,or a hundred of them.