A $16k Dunhill

[georged]

I imagine these pipes will go to guys who routinely spend this kind of money for a night out on the town.

This is the answer. ^^^
It hurts a bit to fully accept that there are people who LITERALLY make so much money that stopping to pick up a dropped hundred dollar bill costs more than a hundred dollars' worth of their time, but it's true.
And while there are only a few hundred people in the world who are that wealthy, you get the idea. There are tens of thousands who think nothing of ordering a $5K bottle of wine with lunch, and hand out two-pound tins of Beluga caviar and boxes of old Cuban cigars like Halloween candy to their friends.
For them, a $15,000 pipe is like a corncob is to us. (Maybe less when measured as a percentage of their total net worth)

 

[mso489]

I guess in that league of discretionary spending the appearance of the item is somewhat arbitrary. If I were going to look at a $16K pipe on exhibition, that isn't what I'd expect, rather figured up for my taste. I'm not sure what I would expect. Exquisite briar, grain, sublime carving and other materials, perhaps. I don't think adorning pipes with jewels captures the idea, since you are then buying gems as much as a pipe. Okay, but not exactly a super expensive pipe. It's like $1,500 denim jeans; they may be designed and tailored through the roof, but finally, that's isn't what jeans are about, to me. As with many extremely high priced items, this tends to be merely an exhibition of wealth, what Thorsten Veblen called conspicuous consumption. Still, I do like pipes. I'd like to see one that would make me feel that at that price it was unquestionably worth it, as a pipe. I'd pay, uh, fifteen dollars to get in to see that one. This looks like a miserable old $3K Dunhill, a car pipe.

 

[owen]

Daveinlax, I always like what you have to say about high end collecting, I was reading an old thread about Sixten Ivarsson pipes and you had a few interesting things to say.
Passionate collectors as most of us know are obsessive, meticulous and misunderstood.

 

[B18]

Now that is a real classy pipe, with a really nice finish. But by Odin's beard that is really expensive!

 

[thomasw]

hehe, i like the shape and the black ebony finish; I just wouldn't want the little fish painted on the bowl -- too effeminate and tight-jeans hipstery for me. as others have mentioned, it is too much $ to put into a pipe ... there's a saying about having more $ than sense i.e., 'phronesis', that applies here.

 

[daveinlax]

Daveinlax, I always like what you have to say about high end collecting,

Thanks! I'm just lucky that I got active in the real world hobby when pipe collections were still a big part of pipe shows and even a low dough nobody like me can spend time with guys who collect at a higher level than I ever could. In the past 18 (I'm the kid) years I've spent more time sitting around smoke filled hotel rooms and ballrooms around the country than I have with my parents. It just happens that I know 2 guys who are and were (RIP) into Namiki and a couple others who collect Sixten. 8O

 

[oldgeezersmoker]

I saw a Namiki when I visited Dunhill's store in SF in the early to mid 90's. My best memory is that it was priced at around $5000. It struck me as gorgeous, but I had no frame of reference to value it. I never knew any one who collected them.

 

[mackeson]

I'll take a dozen.

 

[fitzy]

Ken unfortunately since it became Davidoff the store has gone almost exclusively to Cigars except for a few high end pipes that are there for their Asian customers. Although a couple weeks ago I was very close to breaking out my credit card for a $500 Castello Old Antiquari "G" canadian that I fell in love with.
The guy in the store didn't know much and said they stopped selling Savinelli's when Laudisi took over the distribution rights and the guy thinks they can't get them any longer.
Also unfortunately the two Barclay Rex's near me and Ed Burak's Connoisseur pipes have closed.

 

[oldreddog]

Not for me even if I did have the bread. Although I wouldn't buy a BMW S1000rr with a similar price tag, even if I'd smoke the beemer better.

 

[tslex]

"The value of a thing is the price it will bring."

 

[disinformatique]

The Price is for the skill of the artist who worked for a LONG time over the small piece of wood to create something. Plus Dunhill, Artist, Importer, Wholesaler, Retailer would earn from this as well. Hence the $16k marque.

 

[mawnansmiff]

I wonder how many smokes it would take afore the finish started to peel off.
Regards,
Jay.

 

[kenbarnes]

I wonder how many smokes it would take afore the finish started to peel off.

Now that is an interesting point. I have never seen one that has been regularly smoked.

I do think that this lacquer( resin from a certain tree) is incredibly hard wearing. I would imagine that they would possibly use 'branch wood' briar as it has very little grain variation or flaws. I understand that the lacquer processes are incredibly time consuming, taking many months to apply and dry so many layers and sprinkles.

Alfred Dunhill started doing business with Namiki in 1927 (to garnish his Dunhill pens and lighters?).

I think these pipes may well be for decoration only?

 

[saltedplug]

The current Dunhill owners continue to make big money on their pipes, yet anyone who knows anything about pipes knows that Dunhills are sold at twice the price that they should be. You couldn't get me to buy a new Dunhill. But many others continue to buy them. Alfred Dunhill must have been a marketing genius as the name Dunhill has been fixed for over a hundred years, sunk so deep in inbred English respectability that it's become nearly impossible to separate the myth from reality, that is, from what I know, that Dunhills are machine-made and hand finished.
Though I adore their shapes and their finishes, but do so from afar.