That could also be twenty years more experience than when you bought it.
Are Dunhill pipes today as good as they used to be?
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I read somewhere that Ashton pipes use a very similar oil curing process for their pipes since Ashton himself used to work at Dunhill and learned all their tricks (Ashton - Pipedia - https://pipedia.org/wiki/Ashton). He passed this information down and Jimmy Craig continues this process for pipes produced today. I own a single (1995) Dunhill pipe and a single Ashton pipe. They're both great, aren't very heavy, and have amazing grain, but the Ashton feels sturdier than the Dunhill so I like the Ashton pipe more than that particular Dunhill.
If you have access to a B&M that sells estate Dunhills you should just compare them, see how they feel in your hand (don't put it in your mouth though
), and see if it's for you. Everyone has different tastes so ultimately, the best pipes (for you), are the ones that you like.
Yes,I have several newer Ashtons and I can confirm those are more sturdy,robust than similar sized Dunhill'sI read somewhere that Ashton pipes use a very similar oil curing process for their pipes since Ashton himself used to work at Dunhill and learned all their tricks (Ashton - Pipedia - https://pipedia.org/wiki/Ashton). He passed this information down and Jimmy Craig continues this process for pipes produced today. I own a single (1995) Dunhill pipe and a single Ashton pipe. They're both great, aren't very heavy, and have amazing grain, but the Ashton feels sturdier than the Dunhill so I like the Ashton pipe more than that particular Dunhill.
If you have access to a B&M that sells estate Dunhills you should just compare them, see how they feel in your hand (don't put it in your mouth though
First grade wood and quality ebonite.
Nothing ever changed regarding those two ingredients from Dunhill's early years to today. It's a "policy" thing that the brand has leaned on heavily the entire time they've been sold.
How they are shaped and finished definitely has changed, though.
In a nutshell, in the late 1960's cost accountants were turned loose on the operation and many manufacturing steps were eliminated, finishes were simplified, 2/3rds of the shape catalog was dropped, and shaping---both stummel and stem---was performed faster, which resulted in clunkier, less refined pipes.
Things improved significantly in the 1980's, though, but one thing did not "bounce back" at all and never has: The trademark craggy sandblasting.
Oddly, some of the best smooth specimens ever made by Dunhill were produced between the early 1980's and the early 2000's. They're fairly rare, though.
As for smoking quality, good briar is good briar, and everything else about the smoking experience is user preference: chamber shape, stem contour, and so forth. If you happen to like a certain piece for aesthetic or physical comfort reasons, when it was made doesn't matter (and certainly couldn't be detected in a double blind test).
Nothing ever changed regarding those two ingredients from Dunhill's early years to today. It's a "policy" thing that the brand has leaned on heavily the entire time they've been sold.
How they are shaped and finished definitely has changed, though.
In a nutshell, in the late 1960's cost accountants were turned loose on the operation and many manufacturing steps were eliminated, finishes were simplified, 2/3rds of the shape catalog was dropped, and shaping---both stummel and stem---was performed faster, which resulted in clunkier, less refined pipes.
Things improved significantly in the 1980's, though, but one thing did not "bounce back" at all and never has: The trademark craggy sandblasting.
Oddly, some of the best smooth specimens ever made by Dunhill were produced between the early 1980's and the early 2000's. They're fairly rare, though.
As for smoking quality, good briar is good briar, and everything else about the smoking experience is user preference: chamber shape, stem contour, and so forth. If you happen to like a certain piece for aesthetic or physical comfort reasons, when it was made doesn't matter (and certainly couldn't be detected in a double blind test).
Don't about Dunhills or white spots. I do like their looks though.
Off-topic!
There's a lot of talk about things being better built in the past. I think the truth is around the middle, as with many things. As said already above, the stuff we retain from the past are the stuff that made it, and it made it due to a combination of factors, manufacturing quality being one of them. There's cubic kilometres of crap made in the 70s/80s/90s that never made it, then there's my grandma's fridge and oven, bought sometime in the 80s and still going strong. Or my grandpa's armchair which is at least 120 years old.
You can obviously get good furniture made today that will last for decades, unlike IKEA for instance (which by the way WILL last 10 years if assembled properly and not ever disassembled - incidentally, talking about IKEA, I have noticed a drop in quality over 20 years actually), same for houses. Actually I think well-built houses/insulation are better than anything that was there before.
Cars too, my car for instance, a KIA Ceed GT, has a 7 year OR 140,000 km warranty on mechanical and electric parts. This is the highest in the market, and on one hand it sounds odd that they "trust" their engine for relatively little time, on the other nobody says that the car will die at 7 years and a day (unlike say, printers!). My previous car was a Honda Civic 1.6i bought in 2000, died from an irreparable gearbox failure in 2020. Lived 20 years without a hitch, just regular maintenance. My mechanic at the time, a guy with 30 years' experience fixing cars and bikes told me "the generation of cars of late 90s/early 2000s was the most long-lived we've seen in a long time".
Off-topic!
There's a lot of talk about things being better built in the past. I think the truth is around the middle, as with many things. As said already above, the stuff we retain from the past are the stuff that made it, and it made it due to a combination of factors, manufacturing quality being one of them. There's cubic kilometres of crap made in the 70s/80s/90s that never made it, then there's my grandma's fridge and oven, bought sometime in the 80s and still going strong. Or my grandpa's armchair which is at least 120 years old.
You can obviously get good furniture made today that will last for decades, unlike IKEA for instance (which by the way WILL last 10 years if assembled properly and not ever disassembled - incidentally, talking about IKEA, I have noticed a drop in quality over 20 years actually), same for houses. Actually I think well-built houses/insulation are better than anything that was there before.
Cars too, my car for instance, a KIA Ceed GT, has a 7 year OR 140,000 km warranty on mechanical and electric parts. This is the highest in the market, and on one hand it sounds odd that they "trust" their engine for relatively little time, on the other nobody says that the car will die at 7 years and a day (unlike say, printers!). My previous car was a Honda Civic 1.6i bought in 2000, died from an irreparable gearbox failure in 2020. Lived 20 years without a hitch, just regular maintenance. My mechanic at the time, a guy with 30 years' experience fixing cars and bikes told me "the generation of cars of late 90s/early 2000s was the most long-lived we've seen in a long time".
I'd agree with the comments that there are duds in every batch and that if an old dunhill has survived this long, its generally a good sign. 60s dunhills and earlier often had that wonderful craggy sandblasting, which would later feature in Bill Taylor's Ashton pipes. Very tactile, wonderful to hold.
I personally think that dunhill craftsmanship has only improved as the years have gone on. While the newer shells do not have the craggy feel of yore, the sandblasting, at least from the 90s onwards, has become really consistent and much more finely applied, resulting in a finish which is unmistakably Dunhill. I also think the color palette used in more modern Dunhills is superior to older hues, with the exception perhaps of the Dress finish. The contemporary dark brown Bruyere just looks a lot more classy to me than the scarlet found in earlier models, and the blonde stain of recent root briars shows off the grain much better than it used to, in my opinion.
However, I still do not think a new dunhill is worth the price. You're just paying for the brand, and with the kind of money you're spending on a new Dunnie you could get an arguably better, tailor-made pipe crafted for you by an artisan. Or you could buy a second-hand Bill Taylor Ashton piece and still save (I'm an Ashton guy myself, though I think that recent Ashton pipes are also pretty pricey).
If you can get a used one second-hand and it's in good condition, you'll be paying a much more reasonable figure. Dunhills are like diamonds - they lose a large amount of their value as soon as they leave the shop.
I personally think that dunhill craftsmanship has only improved as the years have gone on. While the newer shells do not have the craggy feel of yore, the sandblasting, at least from the 90s onwards, has become really consistent and much more finely applied, resulting in a finish which is unmistakably Dunhill. I also think the color palette used in more modern Dunhills is superior to older hues, with the exception perhaps of the Dress finish. The contemporary dark brown Bruyere just looks a lot more classy to me than the scarlet found in earlier models, and the blonde stain of recent root briars shows off the grain much better than it used to, in my opinion.
However, I still do not think a new dunhill is worth the price. You're just paying for the brand, and with the kind of money you're spending on a new Dunnie you could get an arguably better, tailor-made pipe crafted for you by an artisan. Or you could buy a second-hand Bill Taylor Ashton piece and still save (I'm an Ashton guy myself, though I think that recent Ashton pipes are also pretty pricey).
If you can get a used one second-hand and it's in good condition, you'll be paying a much more reasonable figure. Dunhills are like diamonds - they lose a large amount of their value as soon as they leave the shop.
it's hard to describe the differences clearly but it's not experience. For one thing the differences that come from technique and experience are far more dramatic. But I think the best way I could describe the difference is that the tone of anything I smoke out of it is lower. Like it shifts the base taste into softer but not more muted territory.
Also sometimes my technique still goes to poo if I am really distracted and the pipe and it's still smokes different. It isn't super dramatic but it is enough for me to think you can't really compare how well it is made to any other decent pipe that's more new. It's just not the same pipe it was and it's not ghosting (might be some other effect of use). And I noticed the changes in it before I really put any effort into technique.
I'm not a Dunhill guy, but from what I've heard from those who are, their pipes went downhill considerably when they started having them made in France. From my limited experience with French made pipes I can easily believe that. 
I’m not a huge fan of Dunhill period, I’m not a fan of the boring traditional shapes. But I’m sure hundreds of millions bowls of tobacco have been enjoyed in Dunhill pipes over time. I need to read the entire thread to see if George weighed in as his professional opinion would carry the most weight with me.
I'm a big Dunhill fan and I own more than I can count, from a 1930's Shell Briar to a 2019 Quaint shape. I still buy new ones that catch my eye. If you find one you think is attractive and speaks to you by all means go for it. As said earlier in this thread the truth is most pipes smoke the same. I will, however, offer three criticisms of the current Dunhill "White Spot" production:
1. The shaping is off on many of the classic shapes. I'm not sure what's going on with the carvers. The proportions are off, often too short a shank and stem for an over-sized bowl resulting in a stubby look. The shanks are no longer gently tapered to meet the stem in one continuous line. I believe this is done to speed production and to be able to use stems cut from the same blanks.
2. The Bruyere stain is too dark. At some point they made the decision to switch to a darker stain to hide briar with poor grain (or uninteresting grain). The result is Bruyere pipes where no grain at all is even visible.
3. The Shell sandblasts are quite soft and shallow resulting in many boring and uninteresting blasts. They send the better blasts to their Cumberland and County lines instead of Shell these days. Now some may prefer a shallow blast, and it may be due to the absence of Algerian Briar today. But many artisan carvers can find soft briar that produces deep craggy blasts so why can't Dunhill? It's a choice.
1. The shaping is off on many of the classic shapes. I'm not sure what's going on with the carvers. The proportions are off, often too short a shank and stem for an over-sized bowl resulting in a stubby look. The shanks are no longer gently tapered to meet the stem in one continuous line. I believe this is done to speed production and to be able to use stems cut from the same blanks.
2. The Bruyere stain is too dark. At some point they made the decision to switch to a darker stain to hide briar with poor grain (or uninteresting grain). The result is Bruyere pipes where no grain at all is even visible.
3. The Shell sandblasts are quite soft and shallow resulting in many boring and uninteresting blasts. They send the better blasts to their Cumberland and County lines instead of Shell these days. Now some may prefer a shallow blast, and it may be due to the absence of Algerian Briar today. But many artisan carvers can find soft briar that produces deep craggy blasts so why can't Dunhill? It's a choice.
Personal likes and dislikes are opinions which, when well thought out, are very useful.
OTOH, sentences that start with "I heard...." "I read somewhere" "I wonder if x,y or z is any good" are less useful- to me at least.
OTOH, sentences that start with "I heard...." "I read somewhere" "I wonder if x,y or z is any good" are less useful- to me at least.
As you can see, every one has an opinion. Are todays Dunhill pipes as good as they were in the past? Pretty much so if you don't count the pipes made from Monday June 16th through Wednesday September 15th of 1980. Those are universally lauded as the best Dunhill pipes ever made. That was the time Chuck Norris worked there in preparation for his new movie The Pipetagon. He made about 4 dozens pipe before they realized a pipe maker wasn't really believe as a guy who could stop a gang of ninja terrorists so they reworked the script and move production to Los Angeles and called it The Octagon.
You had me going there.
However
September 15th was a Monday, not a Wednesday, which casts doubt on the accuracy of your entire account.
Hmmmmmm...
I have one, a 1960 “pot” that is really nice, works great and I really like it, but it’s the only one I’ll ever own. I have an old Barclay-Rex pot of almost identical and compact proportions that is every bit the equal of the Dunhill. Having said that, I have other pipes of recent vintage I reach for far more often and to me, work wonderfully as well. The Peterson Arklow No. 68 I’m smoking as I type is new, smokes better than either of the above and I suppose isn’t considered “special”.
A good Dunhill is probably as good as it once was. The same applies to the White Spot. It all depends on the pipe and, to some extant, the era in which it was/is manufactured. You've got some research to do to arrive at your "truth."
Only as "Alfred Dunhill's". This and the all capital Dunhill stamp were retired for pipes in 2011 to separate the brand from pipes and pipe tobacco.
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