Dicey Looking Tilshead Pipe, and I Wasn't Even Drunk When I Bought It!

[agnosticpipe]

I have one other Tilshead pipe that is rather small for one of these pipes, but a wonderful smoker. When I saw this I had a hard time understanding how it could come from the boys at Upshall pipes. It has a LOT of flaws, and also has a replacement stem, that was very poorly done. Well I always like the underdog, and pipes that have an interesting history, plus is was very cheap. (about 1/4 of the usual price for one of these pipes)
Anyway, I decided to give it a little love and fixed the stem up, cleaned up the briar and gave it a little brighter stain. The stampings were very weak, and I have no idea if this stem is even close to the original. Still a dicey looking pipe, but I was wanting to give the poor thing another go at life. I would like to hear what you all think about it. (and yes Ken, I'm talking to you too)

 

[Wellington]

It does look like the ugly duckling in some ways, but your fondness of it and goal to see it as a good smoker makes it a very cool pipe find!

 

[ssjones]

Yike. I've never seen an Upshall with those kind of flaws. Be interesting to read Ken's comments.

 

[samuelgawith01]

I have one other Tilshead pipe that is rather small for one of these pipes, but a wonderful smoker. When I saw this I had a hard time understanding how it could come from the boys at Upshall pipes. It has a LOT of flaws, and also has a replacement stem, that was very poorly done. Well I always like the underdog, and pipes that have an interesting history, plus is was very cheap. (about 1/4 of the usual price for one of these pipes)
Anyway, I decided to give it a little love and fixed the stem up, cleaned up the briar and gave it a little brighter stain. The stampings were very weak, and I have no idea if this stem is even close to the original. Still a dicey looking pipe, but I was wanting to give the poor thing another go at life. I would like to hear what you all think about it. (and yes Ken, I'm talking to you too)

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Maybe that's why it only made the Tilshead grade,or maybe a prior owner modified it.But dicey can be nicey.You have the final say.

 

[craig61a]

That pipe's got street cred... Obviously owned by somebody who enjoyed it. And probably carried it around in his front shirt pocket. Probably fell out that front pocket into the gravel when he was stepping out of the cab on the front end loader, and got scrapped up when he had to change out the hydraulic lines on the hydraulic cylinders. But old Fred the local pipe repair guy smoothed out the dings on his 60 grit belt sander, and gave it a nice buffing with valve lapping compound...

Makes me feel better about the one Tilshead I own. I buffed out scratches with White Diamond and countersunk the knife marks on the edge of the rim to make it look more presentable.

 

[Briar Baron]

The Tilshead I have, and others I have seen, usually are nearly good enough to be a JU. IMHO that is a ring in....

 

[mikethompson]

You call that a dicey looking pipe? Now this is a dicey looking pipe!

 

[tomatamot]

You call that a dicey looking pipe? Now this is a dicey looking pipe!

Is this a high-End piece?

 

[mikethompson]

Is this a high-End piece?

strictly for the high rollers

 

[mawnansmiff]

That's a nice quincunx you have there Mike!

Regards,

Jay.?

 

[kcghost]

Someone has to love the pipe and your number came up.

 

[mso489]

That certainly has some strange wear on it. You have it revived cosmetically and may get years of use. Sometimes the hard life briars seem to smoke the best.

 

[anotherbob]

You call that a dicey looking pipe? Now this is a dicey looking pipe!

that's what I thought this post would be about.

 

[kenbarnes]

of

I do not know what to say. First of all and for the record, this pipe was made after I sold my shares and left the company in 1989 as the 'stampings' are actually engraved which we did not do under my watch! Basically, Tilshead pipes were the pipes which we rejected having a James Upshall stamp/quality. When I worked there we made no sandblasted pipes whatsoever. In fact, I have never made a sandblasted pipe. We did start to carve a few Upshalls in the mid 1980s (1986 I think) due to very strong pressure coming from the U.S. So, rather than calling them rejects, we put them in a line called Tilshead. We never filled any of the pipes we made and the Tilsheads were either finished in a natural or a plum red.
I have seen worse machine-made rejects at the Charatan factory being selected for sandblasting (third or fourth quality, not Charatan quality) and some of these never actually survived the sandblasting and were then scrapped. The weird part is that this kind of bowl with flaws like this would have been scrapped on the saw or else on the lathe and never been finished in the first place as it would have cost more to make the pipe than to scrap it and do untold damage to our image.
I can only imagine that the guy that bought the company got Barry to finish some bowls that he bought from somewhere and put them out as Tilsheads. At that time, Barry was probably so disheartened by what had happened to the factory and just did as he was told.
At first I thought a dog or someone's pet weasel had got hold of it but there are no teeth marks on the other side of the bowl. In the second photo, the white spots are as a result of someone re-painting the room where it was - with a roller. These will clean off quite easily. The worst part of the pipe for me is the bend on the mouthpiece. This is definitely not Barry's work.
On reflection, I now think that the owner came to the factory one day with some half-finished fitted pipes he had bought from somewhere and asked (told) June White to finish these pipes, engrave them with Tilshead Made By Hand, final-polish them and wrap them up. She must have cringed too!

 

[agnosticpipe]

I do not know what to say. First of all and for the record, this pipe was made after I sold my shares and left the company in 1989 as the 'stampings' are actually engraved which we did not do under my watch! Basically, Tilshead pipes were the pipes which we rejected having a James Upshall stamp/quality. When I worked there we made no sandblasted pipes whatsoever. In fact, I have never made a sandblasted pipe. We did start to carve a few Upshalls in the mid 1980s (1986 I think) due to very strong pressure coming from the U.S. So, rather than calling them rejects, we put them in a line called Tilshead. We never filled any of the pipes we made and the Tilsheads were either finished in a natural or a plum red.
I have seen worse machine-made rejects at the Charatan factory being selected for sandblasting (third or fourth quality, not Charatan quality) and some of these never actually survived the sandblasting and were then scrapped. The weird part is that this kind of bowl with flaws like this would have been scrapped on the saw or else on the lathe and never been finished in the first place as it would have cost more to make the pipe than to scrap it and do untold damage to our image.
I can only imagine that the guy that bought the company got Barry to finish some bowls that he bought from somewhere and put them out as Tilsheads. At that time, Barry was probably so disheartened by what had happened to the factory and just did as he was told.
At first I thought a dog or someone's pet weasel had got hold of it but there are no teeth marks on the other side of the bowl. In the second photo, the white spots are as a result of someone re-painting the room where it was - with a roller. These will clean off quite easily. The worst part of the pipe for me is the bend on the mouthpiece. This is definitely not Barry's work.
On reflection, I now think that the owner came to the factory one day with some half-finished fitted pipes he had bought from somewhere and asked (told) June White to finish these pipes, engrave them with Tilshead Made By Hand, final-polish them and wrap them up. She must have cringed too!

I want to thank everyone for their feedback here, and especially Ken Barnes! I hope I wasn't mis-understood with my original post, as I did not want either Ken or Barry to feel I was denigrating the work they did with Upshall pipes. Some day I'll get a first grade Upshall pipe, but for now I'm enjoying the Tilshead pipes. I like them because I feel I'm still getting a pipe brand with some wonderful history.
My other Tilshead is indeed a reddish plum color, and it does have the nomenclature engraved. However, I tried to take some close up photos of the stampings on this pipe and it looks more to me like regular stampings, so I enclosed a couple of photos of the two different stampings. The before pics were from the sellers auction as I always seem to forget to do so. He said the stem had been replaced, and judging from the photos I had no doubt. The specks were just dust I guess as they weren't there when I got the pipe. I figured the bend was not as it should have been either. Whatever the story is on this pipe, I still like it and all its flaws, and it smokes just fine.

 

[craig61a]

the 'stampings' are actually engraved which we did not do under my watch!

I did not notice the stamping... Good eye. And the grain is what I would expect of a basket pipe, not a Tilshead. Shame that the brand went to hell like it did.

 

[kenbarnes]

My error, I now see the pipe in question was stamped with the stamping press.
I am saddened by the plummet in quality of the company before it closed. Just to maintain the quality was a full-time job for me and just a little complacency could have seriously damaged the name. For me, this is more like blatant disregard for a name with a 'don't care' policy added for good measure.