Briar Pipes - Ireland - Late 1860s

[jguss]

Here is a BBB that appears to be hallmarked in 1876. Although having pulled this one out again, I'm a little confused by it. Simply because to me I would think it was later based on style, style of the case etc. I will try and look into the 'Sharman's Patent'.

Despite appearances I suspect the pipe might date from 1901 for the following reasons. First there is evidence to suggest the shape of the Birmingham date letter cartouche varied over this period, and that therefore a round cartouche does not automatically mean 1876:



Second, I believe the introduction of the BBB "Own Make" line dated from around the mid 1880s. See this item published in Tobacco in late 1888:



Third, the earliest reference I've so far found to the Carlton (which was exclusive to BBB/Frankau) is in an ad to the trade placed in the May 5, 1882 number of Tobacco (see middle of column on right-hand side of ad):



Fourth and last, I believe the patent being referred to was granted to William Horton Sharman (who for convenience sake I'll refer to as WHS), a London goldsmith, silversmith, and tobacco pipe mounter born in 1820 and died in 1891.

Note that WHS is not to be confused with his son William Edmund Sharman, who practiced the same trade and was awarded at least one tobacco pipe related patent in in late 1898.

Here is WHS's patent:









Better photographs of an actual original Carlton's tenon would settled this conjecture one way or the other. In the meanwhile see below an extract from Harrod's 1895 catalogue which features several sketches of Carlton pipes with stem separated from shank:



All of which provides a strong counter argument for a later dating of your pipe, but doesn't get to the point of being proof positive. I'd be interested to see the internals of your bulldog; in addition when I'm back in NJ I'll check my library to see if I have anything there that would help further to decide this question one way or the other.

Cheers,
Jon

 

[captainsousie]

No they used hollowed out potatoes and reeds for stems. Much easier to carve than briar or even meerschaum.

And of course we have the next question. How many potatoes does it take to kill an Irishman?

 

[MC43.]

thankyou very much for all the great responses that has certainly helped me!

 

[jaingorenard]

Excellent information as usual; thanks @jguss ! @Ahi Ka raised the fact that the stamping is a bit sloppy, with the BBB overlaying the anchor. Could this be an earlier band that has been appropriated for a Carlton system?

More photos:

 

[jguss]

Could this be an earlier band that has been appropriated for a Carlton system?

My default is skepticism when band legerdemain (or sleight-of-band as it’s colloquially known) is proffered as the solution to harmonizing inconvenient incongruities. Having said that (and saying that is admittedly a mouthful) in this particular case I find it tempting.

Like a rat in a maze we’re blocked at every turn: a) in my heart of hearts I have to concede the date hallmark really does look like an 1876, clever arguments to the contrary notwithstanding; b) your photos make it clear the pipe is indubitably a Sharman, utilizing the WHS patent shown above, and an 1876 pipe can’t boast patent protection which wasn’t even applied for until January of 1878; and c) as you note the actual pipe doesn’t feel like one from that early a time period (and to add the obvious surviving briar pipes from before 1880 are incredibly rare; you can count the number seen over the years on Worthpoint pretty much on the fingers of one hand; finding one is statistically unlikely).

The brevity of the gap between the date on the band and the application for the patent is particularly frustrating; as the imitable Maxwell Smart used to say, “missed it by that much”. But in cases of chronology an inch is as good as a mile.

All of which says to me the band theory, while a bit too deus ex machina for my taste, in this particular instance is probably the best of several bad alternatives.

 

[condorlover1]

@jguss: Do you see the stem has been modified by cutting off a damaged section above the mouth piece and grafting a new stem section onto the part holding the metal counter threaded tenon. Is that a modern repair or contemporary as you can see the difference in color clearly?

 

[jaingorenard]

@jguss: Do you see the stem has been modified by cutting off a damaged section above the mouth piece and grafting a new stem section onto the part holding the metal counter threaded tenon. Is that a modern repair or contemporary as you can see the difference in color clearly?

It doesn't look like a very modern repair, but the swirls in it make me think it must be fairly recent? You're probably more of an expert than me on the different amberoids used back then!

I had wondered if this was original and was just how they had fitted the tenon system originally, but as you say the colour difference is too noticeable.

 

[condorlover1]

@jaingorenard: Most amberoids from the late 19th century tended to be a rather nasty compound containing Xylene and if I come across it in a pipe it is immediately sent in for a re-stem. The other materials commonly encountered and used are Bakelite and Redmanol of which the latter is often described on Ebay as 'Cherry Amber' by sellers who should know better. The bottom half of that stem matches the material on a smaller 'cutty' pipe in the below picture.

 

[jaingorenard]

Just a further question @jguss; from the 1870s (or earlier) pipes you have seen, are they commonly banded? I'm curious if it was common for them to be expensive and highly decorative (like the more common meerschaums) when they were relatively knew, or if they were not. If the latter, then some of the very old pipes we see with no band (or no hallmarks on the band) may well be that old.

I'd be particularly interested in what the very early bowls coming out of Saint-Claude looked like.

 

[jaingorenard]

Sorry to have completely derailed the thread, but I think that 'b' is actually a 'v' for 1895. See this article here: British hallmarks and sponsor's marks in watch cases - https://www.vintagewatchstraps.com/britishhallmarks.php

Also, here is another example from my collection. Again, I thought 'b', but looking at the examples in that article it is almost certainly the 'v' for 1895.

 

[condorlover1]

In a drawer in my office I have a Peterson pre-Irish Republic pipe that was gifted to me by someone on here which I smoke occasionally! I doubt it is relevant to the Op-ed but here is a picture of it as it really is quite delightful.

 

[Ahi Ka]

Nice Pete Simon! Looks like 1919 hallmarks, so even pre Irish-free state.

 

[condorlover1]

@Ahi Ka: It is very special pipe and was given to me by a very special dude!

 

[Zamora]

I would guess that all tobacco was smoked in clay pipes afore briar root became the norm for pipes no matter where you were geographically.

As for when briar pipes made it into Ireland, perhaps looking at trade directories might shed some light as these were published annually.

Jay.

Pretty much. Clays were the norm in France, Britain and America well into the 1800s. They were seen as disposable so you can still beachcomb along the rivers by any major city from those countries and find broken and discarded clays. From what I understand the Spanish and Portuguese didn't adopt pipes until the briar era, not sure how they consumed tobacco before that but I'm guessing cheroots or crude cigarettes. Meerschaum pipes were first produced in the 1700s but from what I understand didn't become common until much later. Japanese kiseru pipes were metal but were adopted by clay pipes the Dutch had, however kiseru is much more similar in nature to cigarettes.

 

[anotherbob]

No they used hollowed out potatoes and reeds for stems. Much easier to carve than briar or even meerschaum.

you're confusing the Irish with Stoned Rural PA teenagers again. Many of whom are of Irish descent. The more Urban version uses soda cans.

 

[anotherbob]

Pretty much. Clays were the norm in France, Britain and America well into the 1800s. They were seen as disposable so you can still beachcomb along the rivers by any major city from those countries and find broken and discarded clays. From what I understand the Spanish and Portuguese didn't adopt pipes until the briar era, not sure how they consumed tobacco before that but I'm guessing cheroots or crude cigarettes. Meerschaum pipes were first produced in the 1700s but from what I understand didn't become common until much later. Japanese kiseru pipes were metal but were adopted by clay pipes the Dutch had, however kiseru is much more similar in nature to cigarettes.

I know with the Spanish that snuff was pretty big, in fact In England at one point snuff was what the fancy rich folks did while the common man smoked pipes... Until the British captured several spanish ships that had so much snuff on them it literally flooded the market and dropped the price into the reach of the common man. Though nothing can say how certain or common snuff use was in Spain for sure, but there are hints that snuff was pretty big there.
Although no one knows why bergamot and citrus scented snuffs are often called S.P. one really popular theory is that it stands for Spanish Prize from that specific haul mentioned above. Also Sheffield Pride is another popular guess.

 

[jaingorenard]

Pretty much. Clays were the norm in France, Britain and America well into the 1800s. They were seen as disposable so you can still beachcomb along the rivers by any major city from those countries and find broken and discarded clays. From what I understand the Spanish and Portuguese didn't adopt pipes until the briar era, not sure how they consumed tobacco before that but I'm guessing cheroots or crude cigarettes. Meerschaum pipes were first produced in the 1700s but from what I understand didn't become common until much later. Japanese kiseru pipes were metal but were adopted by clay pipes the Dutch had, however kiseru is much more similar in nature to cigarettes.

I believe cigarettes first appeared in the UK with returning Peninsula War soldiers who had seen the Spanish rolling tobacco in paper to smoke it.

But I'd be really surprised if pipes weren't also common in Spain long before the 1850s (start of the briar era). There's that story about the first European to bring tobacco back to Europe being arrested by the Spanish Inquisition for breathing smoke and being possessed by the devil.

 

[jguss]

Just a further question @jguss; from the 1870s (or earlier) pipes you have seen, are they commonly banded? I'm curious if it was common for them to be expensive and highly decorative (like the more common meerschaums) when they were relatively knew, or if they were not. If the latter, then some of the very old pipes we see with no band (or no hallmarks on the band) may well be that old.

I'd be particularly interested in what the very early bowls coming out of Saint-Claude looked like.

I would think early briar pipes were frequently banded if only because there are indications that they were luxury items and that bling remained the order of the day for many or most pipes before the First World War. But these are only indications and absent more 19th century catalogs than have apparently survived it's a bit of an unanswerable question with a tautological flavor to it: largely speaking we can only reliably date pipes if they're hallmarked, and that inevitably leads us to a population of confirmed 19th century pipes that all have bands.

As for your particular pipe now that I'm home and thinking about it a little more it's clear that I've been unusually stupid. There can really be no serious doubt that the pipe and band must post-date 1876; there's no getting around the facts that the Sharman's Patent stamping and pipe internals reflect a patent not granted til 1878, and that the reference to "Own Make" pushes the time of manufacturer to the mid 1880s or later. But in addition to this (and here's where my stupidity really hit its stride) the band itself plainly tells us the same thing. The hallmark date reflects the year the item was assayed, and the end result is a piece of silver (or gold) with the assay office, date, purity, and makers mark stamps all being applied. Put another way the purpose of the assay office is to attest to the purity of something submitted by a specific maker (all of whom have to register with the office before sending submissions). Having determined purity the assay office then stamps the purity, date, and location on the item. Today the maker's mark is added at the assay office at the time of testing; in Victorian England the makers mark "was formerly struck by the maker, prior to sending to assay, which is why this mark often appear upside down or set apart from the other marks." [italics mine]

And the point, of course, is what the makers mark in this case tells us: every variant of the L.B makers mark (the initials stood for Louis Blumfeld, capo di tutti capi of Adolph Frankau) was registered between 1880 and 1893. A closer/clearer photo of the makers mark might show which of the many versions is on your pipe.

 

[jaingorenard]

I would think early briar pipes were frequently banded if only because there are indications that they were luxury items and that bling remained the order of the day for many or most pipes before the First World War. But these are only indications and absent more 19th century catalogs than have apparently survived it's a bit of an unanswerable question with a tautological flavor to it: largely speaking we can only reliably date pipes if they're hallmarked, and that inevitably leads us to a population of confirmed 19th century pipes that all have bands.

As for your particular pipe now that I'm home and thinking about it a little more it's clear that I've been unusually stupid. There can really be no serious doubt that the pipe and band must post-date 1876; there's no getting around the facts that the Sharman's Patent stamping and pipe internals reflect a patent not granted til 1878, and that the reference to "Own Make" pushes the time of manufacturer to the mid 1880s or later. But in addition to this (and here's where my stupidity really hit its stride) the band itself plainly tells us the same thing. The hallmark date reflects the year the item was assayed, and the end result is a piece of silver (or gold) with the assay office, date, purity, and makers mark stamps all being applied. Put another way the purpose of the assay office is to attest to the purity of something submitted by a specific maker (all of whom have to register with the office before sending submissions). Having determined purity the assay office then stamps the purity, date, and location on the item. Today the maker's mark is added at the assay office at the time of testing; in Victorian England the makers mark "was formerly struck by the maker, prior to sending to assay, which is why this mark often appear upside down or set apart from the other marks." [italics mine]

And the point, of course, is what the makers mark in this case tells us: every variant of the L.B makers mark (the initials stood for Louis Blumfeld, capo di tutti capi of Adolph Frankau) was registered between 1880 and 1893. A closer/clearer photo of the makers mark might show which of the many versions is on your pipe.

The only thing I thought was that the band may have been separate to the internals and stamped with the Sharman stamp later. But as you say with the LB stamp even that couldn't be possible. At least it's not just us mistaking the 1895 stamp for the 1876 stamp - seems common for watch collectors too!

 

[jpberg]

No they used hollowed out potatoes and reeds for stems. Much easier to carve than briar or even meerschaum.

Dude, they were OUT of potatoes, remember?