I wrote this elsewhere but I think it applies here:
I have some thoughts but they are hopelessly and probably unfairly biased, especially when it comes to currently produced pipes that bear the Ashton stamp.
I think of Bill Taylor’s pipes in three time periods. The first period was 1984 (the first full year of production) through the very early 1990s. I have no idea if it was the briar or the methods, but the sandblasting during this period tended to be fantastic. Wonderfully grained, very deep and craggy but without really distorting the shape. Bill had left Dunhill to start Ashton and you could tell from the pipes made during this period that he was motivated- he not only was making pipes that were far superior to Dunhills made at the time, he was making pipes that really could be compared to pre-WWII Dunhills. The stems in this period were very thin, very flat, and a little wide. I think they are very comfortable but probably a little too thin for clenchers. He had two men working for him during this time, Frank Lincoln and Sid Cooper, who probably deserve a lot of the credit for these pipes. It can’t be a coincidence that after they left (I think they both passed away in the early 1990s) the pipes changed.
The second period (in my mind) was from the early 1990s to 2003. The blasts were still excellent but maybe not as frequently well grained and not quite as deep. The stems changed, not quite as thin and not as wide. At some point “Ashtonite” was introduced as a stem material and I’m still not sure exactly what it is. I think it’s just a slightly softer than usual lucite but I’m not sure. I love these pipes and I think it was the Ashtons of the 80’s and 90’s that spurred Dunhill to get their act together and back to making great pipes in the 1990s.
The final period (again, just in my mind) was 2003-2008. Bill dissolved his partnership with RD Field, his US importer and who closely collaborated on the creation of the brand, in 2003. I think Field was a critical check on QA, for all the great pipes that Bill produced he could get very sloppy and a lot of them needed to be returned rather than passed on to retailers. After 2003 this check didn’t exist and I think the pipes that made it to stores suffered for it.
I think that the idea of the brand continuing after Bill‘s death is ridiculous. There was a man behind those pipes and he’s gone. That said I did buy two of the new JC pipes thinking that a good pipe is a good pipe no matter what the stamps and my biases say, so I should give them a shot. Both smoked terribly and the stems were uncomfortable. I also don‘t like the fact that the JC pipes run small for the size and Bill Taylor’s Ashtons ran big. I wouldn’t care except that they are priced on size.
I‘ve done a lot of generalizing here and I don‘t mean to say all X are good and all Y are bad. Just my general thoughts.
