A "Times" by "B.B.S" Prince - Barling 2nd from the Pre-Transition Era?

[gripsie]

Hi everyone!

There is a recent addition to my collection. I saw this little Prince (group 2 or 3 I'd say) on eBay with a pretty low buy-it-now-option. The pictures were telling me chances are good that this is a very harmonic Prince shape, which is quite rare in my eyes. So without a second thought I pulled the trigger. And I did right so! This piece came in as a NOS, and I'm assuming it is a Barling 2nd from the pre-transition era, the (late) 50ies or so.

The pipe is crafted really nicely, it even got away with a decent blast. Especially the delicate curve of the stem that is so important for the shape turned out wonderfully and even forms a unit with the shank. The bit is very thin and comfortable.

What I'm asking myself now as someone who doesn't know all too much about Barling pipes: might this really be a Barling 2nd from the pre-transition era? I have attached a screenshot from the pipephil page showing some other BBS examples. They all have a "BB&S" stamp instead of the "B.B.S" on my Prince. Plus, and this makes me wonder about the pre- or post-transition question: they all have 4-digit shape numbers, my Prince has a 3-digit shape number, the 204. In the back of my mind there is the info, that 1-, 2- or 3-digit shape numbers were used in the pre-transition era. Is this or might this also be true for Barling 2nds?

And: I believe I somewhere in the www had seen a shape chart for pre-transition Barling pipes. For those that had a 1-, 2- or 3-digit shape number. Does anyone know of such a shape chart or is my memory playing tricks on me?

Here are some pictures:







Cheers everyone, have a good week! And thank you for your help!
Eddy

 

[mikethompson]

There is only one person you need to talk to.

@sablebrush52

 

[gripsie]

View attachment 46451

There is only one person you need to talk to.

@sablebrush52

Haha, wonderful Mike!

Yes - I'm looking forward to Mr. Sablebrush's answer! And hoping for one. Though I'm very happy to hear thoughts and feedback from anyone in this competent party of pipe enthusiasts.

Cheers,
Eddy

 

[jensen]

I have one, a smooth medium pot stamped in block:
TIMES over PORTLAND over London Made England

 

[gripsie]

I have one, a smooth medium pot stamped in block:
TIMES over PORTLAND over London Made England

Oh, that sounds interesting, jensen. Perhaps you can post a picture of the pipe and of the stampings?

 

[sablebrush52]

Actually, @jguss would probably know more about this than I do. Barling had an interest in the Portland pipe company going back to the late 1920's. They may have used Portland to downstream their lesser wood.

The only BB&S pipes I'm familiar with are Corporate Era 2nds. It's an intriguing possibility, but so far I've not found any documentation about a BB&S line earlier.

Jon has collected an amazing body of research. He might be able to shed some light on this.

 

[gripsie]

Actually, @jguss would probably know more about this than I do. Barling had an interest in the Portland pipe company going back to the late 1920's. They may have used Portland to downstream their lesser wood.

The only BB&S pipes I'm familiar with are Corporate Era 2nds. It's an intriguing possibility, but so far I've not found any documentation about a BB&S line earlier.

Jon has collected an amazing body of research. He might be able to shed some light on this.

Thank you for your answer! I see that it's quite speculative. Perhaps @jguss indeed knows a little more about this.

Still, do you know if there is a compilation of 1-, 2- or 3-digit Barling shape numbers, where one can see which number was standing for which shape in the pre-transition era, @sablebrush52

Thank you and cheers,
Eddy

 

[jguss]

I can tell you a little about the pipe and the company that made it, but honestly not much; assembling and interpreting the random snippets I've gathered about Portland Pipe hasn't been a priority for me.

First off, I believe Portland Pipe Company Limited (PP) was founded in about 1925 (that's the first London city directory in which the company appears). I have documents proving that by the time of the sale of Barling it was part of the company, but strongly suspect that its affiliation with Barling went back a number of decades, possibly to its founding. There are several reasons I think this; one is the fact that PP isn't listed in London phone books (distinct from city directories, which they supplanted by the end of WWII) until 1935, when it was already a decade old. It's tough to imagine any business even then surviving without a telephone, unless perhaps it didn't need one because it was a subsidiary whose affairs were handled by its owner.

Second, Times was a trademarked name belonging to PP, and based on the trademark number (#519362) probably granted in 1931 or 1932 (that's an educated guess; research could make it precise). The Times model was priced as a middle-of-the-road pipe in PP's voluminous lineup. In 1940, for example, it offered the followed pipes at the following prices per the annual retail price list assembled by the industry trade journal Tobacco:

Vintage (10/6)
Exchange (7/6)
Londoner (7/6)
Mosaic (7/6)
Portland Super (7/6)
Crustor (5/6)
Diploma (5/6)
Port Royal (5/6)
Port-de-Luxe (5/6)
Portland Patent (5/6)
Souk-el-Arba (5/6)
Times (4/6)
British Sovereign (3/6)
John Peel (3/6)
Jubilee (3/6)
Sirdar (3/6)
Campaigner (2/6)
Dandy (2/6)
First Call (2/6)
Knobby (2/6)
Topsall (2/6)
Topsall Comfort (2/6)
Portman (2/-)
British National (1/6)
Ruf Kut (1/6)

Finally, It's not clear to me when Times ceased to be produced. I can tell you it continued to appear in the annual directory of Fancy Goods Brands through 1962 at least, but that does not necessarily mean it was offered for sale throughout that period. Since it does appear in price lists through 1954 (I'm missing lists from the latter part of the Fifties), however, I'm inclined to speculate that Times was kept in the PP line pretty much up until the sale of the parent (Barling) and then disappeared in the subsequent rationalization of the aggregate businesses by the new owner.

As for the nature of the relationship between the two companies, again I can only offer speculation. The fact that PP's 1940 prices show a line that more or less tops out at the bottom of Barling's prices in that year, and then goes down from there, suggests to me that the company was created to offer lower price pipes without blemishing the Barling franchise. Whether these were failings per se, or perhaps more likely an efficient way to use briar blocks that didn't pass muster for Barling branded pipes, is unknown (at least to me).

At a guess I'd date your pipe to the 1950s, but that's only based on the admittedly slender evidence cited above. In any case it's a lovely blast and I hope it gives you much pleasure.

Best,
Jon

p.s. By the way I'm not able to read all the nomenclature on the bottom of your pipe from the picture you posted; I'd appreciate it if you could transcribe everything you can make out.

 

[dmcmtk]

Holy perplexing pipe problem Batman! Looking at the Portland line names, we see a few that are very similar to line names in the Later Corporate Era; Londoner, (British) Sovereign, John Peel.

 

[gripsie]

Wow - thank you Jon for your incredibly informed and informing contribution. It's very much apprechiated. What an interesting read!

Your thoughts about the relationship between the different Portland sub-brands and Barling are very comprehensible for me. Another hint for me that this pipe might at least have been roughly cut at the Barling factory is that I have a 1920 Barling Prince (an army mount though), and the shape of the bowl is literally exactly the same. Every little angle, the chamber diameter, the bowl circumference, the silhouette, etc. pp. I'm really inclined to say that stummel of the "Times" was cut by the same machine that cut the 1920 pipe, leading me again to the question if there was a "shape 204" in an early Barling catalog that was standing for a smaller prince. My 1920 Barling doesn't have a shape number (yet).

Sorry for the poor picture of the nomenclature indeed, Jon. Here it is, from left to right:

"TIMES"
(in script, below): "Regd."

(further right, in capital letters): "BY B.B.S"
(below): "LONDON MADE"
(below): "G.T.C"

(further right): "204"

Hope that helps. By the way - when the pipe arrived, it had one of these metal stingers inserted into the mouthpiece, but it was removable, which I of course did. Here's a picture of that filter stinger, perhaps it also is helping us?



Best, Eddy

 

[sablebrush52]

Still, do you know if there is a compilation of 1-, 2- or 3-digit Barling shape numbers, where one can see which number was standing for which shape in the pre-transition era, @sablebrush52

Actually, there is such a compendium of numbers, though it's hardly complete. In 1962, when the Finlay owned Barling company parted ways with its long time American distributor, Nichols, the new distributor, Diversey Machine Works, published a compendium of model numbers then in production for their network of dealers. I have a copy of it.
The compendium consists of repeated sets of three columns. The first column lists the old British market numbers, many of which were four digits beginning with a 1. The next column lists the corresponding Nichols number generally but not always a three digit number. The third column lists the corresponding numbers for the new 4 digit numbering system whose first digit ranged from 2 through 6. The new system was introduced in mid 1962 when the business was still managed by the Barling family for Finlay's.
Barling's model numbering system went through several iterations. In the mid 1920's, when Nichols got the rights to distribute Barling pipes in the US, the company set up two numbering systems. One was for the US and the other was for everywhere else. But not all of their earlier numbers were dropped. One of my favorites of their billiard shapes, the 81A, kept that number from the teens right through late 1962, when the entire line up went through a revamp.

 

[gripsie]

Thank you for the information, saddlebrush. Very interesting indeed - I didn't have any idea the shape numbers were changing so often. I was never occupying myself intensively with Barling pipes and their history. I only have two other Barling pipes - one is the 1920 Prince that doesn't have a shape number, the other one is an "EL" Billard, I'm assuming it is from the 1950s or so, because the mouthpiece is already slotted, it carries the Barling's logo as an arch over "make". But the pipe doesn't carry any additional number.

Browsing through your copy of the compendium, do you find a shape with the number 204, saddlebrush? Or: do you find one or several Prince shapes by Barling and their numbers?

Best, Eddy

 

[jguss]

Holy perplexing pipe problem Batman! Looking at the Portland line names, we see a few that are very similar to line names in the Later Corporate Era; Londoner, (British) Sovereign, John Peel.

Hi Dave, that's not surprising since Portland Pipe was part of the deal when Finlay acquired the business. Those model names were Imperial property (at the least the trademarked ones were) to exploit or not as they saw fit.

What's less demonstrable is the origin of Portland Pipe to begin with. After refreshing my memory by a dive into my files, I'm even more convinced that PP was created by Barling about 1925 to handle their lower quality wood and produce downmarket models; in this sense PP was to Barling in some ways what Parker was to Dunhill (a precedent that was set just a few years before).

After looking a little harder I've found statements that I think are collectively highly persuasive on this point. In 1928 a board held an inquiry into claims of violations of the Merchandise Marks Act by most of the briar pipe "manufacturers" in England. The claim was brought by Barling, with Orlik as a kind of junior partner. Arrayed on the other side was virtually the rest of the industry. At issue was what entitled a pipe to be marked as London Made (recall that this branding was of immense value both in the UK and around the world). Barling took the position that the pipe needed to be made in London from the raw materials up in order to truly be London Made; the rest of the industry disagreed, saying bowls turned in France and finished in England qualified. In more grossly abusive cases, which everyone acknowledged but nobody attempted to defend, completely finished bowls and stems were sometimes shipped separately into England, assembled in London (which took all of a few seconds per pipe), and marked as London Made. Without going into what proved to be a lengthy and somewhat detailed set of arguments, it's enough to observe that by strange coincidence Barling and Orlik were the only two major players to turn all their own bowls, while almost everyone else had all or the overwhelming bulk of their bowls turned in France.

In his 1928 testimony before the Merchandise Marks inquiry Montague Henry Barling at one point stated (the contemporaneous article I'm citing paraphrases) "The briar that was not up to their [Barling's] quality they disposed of through subsidiary selling companies who sold low grade pipes. Their [Barling's] name was not put on these pipes, but only on the high grade". And later Montague added "About nine or ten [briar blocks] were used by Barling's in a gross...and the remainder [about 114-119 blocks out of the gross after initial wastage] were sold to the subsidiary selling company which retailed from 2s. 6d. to 5s. The Barling pipe was 10s. and 6d. and there was also another at 16s. 10d., both being the retail prices."

So this part is clear enough; Barling found an economic way to salvage inferior wood by pushing it down to a subsidiary to sell under a different brand. Note that the statement is unclear at what stage of manufacture the inferior wood is rebranded. In other words at one extreme most of the wood is largely finished by the subsidiary and then sold into the market (making it a true stand-alone pipe manufacturer); at the other extreme the wood is finished by Barling and, perhaps stamped with the subsidiary's name, and pass on to what is essentially a distribution house. I could see either being the case, but at least in the earlier years as we'll see there is evidence to suggest the former.

Now the question becomes what proof is there that Portland Pipe was the subsidiary in question? The answer lies still later in Montague's testimony, in a tangential remark he made while dealing with the vexed question of what deserves to be marked as London Made, and what Barling's practice was in this regard. Montague highlighted the importance of turning the bowl in the value added of the end product, and almost parenthetically said "The Portland PIpe Coy. were supplied by Barling's, and some of the pipes were marked "London Made"." So clearly as early as 1928 there existed a commercial relationship between Barling's and PP; moreover PP was the only other company name checked by Montague in his statements.

The second piece of data comes from advertisements placed in a trade journal at the height of the dispute between between Barling/Orlik and everybody else. Clearly a little propagandizing was going on. In this issue Orlik placed an ad in which Louis Orlik stated "All Briar wood used in the making of Orlik "London Made" Pipes is imported by me into this country in rough blocks and the whole process of shaping, turning and finishing is carried out in my London factory". Later in the same issue Portland Pipe makes similar assertions. In referring to an exhibit of its pipes, PP stated "The very best Algerian wood is used in these productions and the work throughout is British. The Company buy nothing which has been manufactured out of this country, with the exception, of course, of the briar root itself, the basic material. Naturally, they cannot buy that here, but the whole of the manufacturing processes engaged in the production of the pipes is carried out in the Company's factory in London."

From these statements, based on the knowledge that Barling and Orlik were virtually alone in claiming to turn all their own bowls in London at that time, I infer that Portland Pipe was getting virtually all its wood from Barling, and was in all probability the subsidiary referred to in Montague's testimony.

I apologize for going on at such length, but the Portland Pipe issue pops up every so often and I thought this a convenient time to organize some of my thoughts and put them in writing.

A few last remarks: Eddy, thank you for transcribing the nomenclature. Every bit of data is helpful and I appreciate it. BY any chance is there anything stamped on the stinger? On the subject of dating, by the way, I've found PP ads from as late as 1964 offering the Times model, so that extends the range in which it could have been manufactured a bit.

Jesse, is the shape of the stinger familiar to you? As for the shape number, I gather the pipe was sold in Canada and I'm unsure whether the Nichols numbering would have applied. Personally I think the likeliest answer is that because of the many omissions you mention from the shape table it'll be tough to nail this one down on the basis of the 204 stamp.

Regards,
Jon

 

[donjgiles]

A Portland Belge

 

[saltedplug]

Stellar research!

 

[ssjones]

Stellar research!

Yes! And otherwise, lost to time.

 

[saltedplug]

I love how some guys, jguss, ssjones, sablebrush and
dmcmtk, can extend their love of smoking to the other pleasurable avenues of pipe smoking, such as research. It enriches the hobby/pastime/addiction (or whatever the right word is for you). It becomes part of the evolving pipe culture. Think of what Loring did for Dunhill, and by it, think of what he did for us..

(I apologize If you research and I missed you.)

 

[gripsie]

Yes, indeed! What a stellar research. Many many thanks, Jon! It's a pleasure to follow your thoughts and dive into the history of this company - especially since I hadn't known anything about the Portland Pipe Co. until a couple of days ago.

Excuse the late reply, Jon: no, on the stinger there sadly is not a single trace of any marking/stamping/whatsoever.

Since we can say that the shape number cannot assuredly be linked to the different shape numbers Barling was using over time, there's one part of the stamping left that puzzles me: the "B.B.S" instead of the much more common "BB&S". A small difference but so noticable! I have tried to gather as many pictures of stampings on BBS pipes as I could: I have only found the "BB&S" stamping. Not a single other pipe that was stamped "B.B.S". I find that quite unusual!

Best, Eddy