Early Sandblasted Pipes - Many Unknowns Yet Remain

[misterlowercase]

The BBB is exactly like the WDC,

metal tenon screw in to wood shank, rather odd but very snug and 'clocked" perfectly, good open draw.
I was wrong about Hesson, he was Canadian.
I've seen a WDC ad from 1929 where the Hesson has already been updated to "Hesson Guard", they ran with that for a good while, and the later design is totally different,

Love this old WDC case,

"individullay baked"

 

[dmcmtk]

Hmm, I recently came across a WDC Milano bent, It's on the to do list, I'll be very careful taking the stem off, curious about the internals.

 

[jguss]

Great thread, hard to know where to begin. Wait a minute, I know, with kudos to Troy!
I just have a few random remarks to add. First off, I'm not a patent lawyer, or any kind of a lawyer for that matter. It's true that I've been sleeping next to one for almost thirty years, but it turns out that's not very useful as a path for admission to the Bar. Nonetheless I've brushed up against intellectual property concepts a few times, and can say that patents can be, and often have been, easily evaded by finding other ways to achieve the same objective. More importantly in this case, as Troy noted the Dunhill patent makes it clear that sandblasting of pipes existed prior to their application; Alfred was just patenting aspects of his approach. We know that Dunhill patented many different kinds of innovations, and that he was a litigious sob when it came to defending what he thought to be his legal rights (the records show a variety of lawsuits on a variety of subjects). So the fact that other companies were making sandblasted pipes at that time is pretty good evidence that Dunhill didn't have anything particularly special that he could have enforced against competitors (by the way, Troy, you can add Orlik's Dugout as another early sandblast pipe to your list). In short, I think it's a waste of energy trying to think how pipemakers were managing to make sandblasts when Dunhill held a patent; Dunhill was essentially admitting that the general process of sandblasting briar was prior art.
As for Barlings, I agree with Sable: what evidence I've run across suggests that they didn't produce Fossils until the early part of WWII. But of course evidence is always definitive until it's not; I haven't given up hope that Barling catalogs from the 1920s and/or 1930s will eventually emerge.
As for a link between BBB (i.e. Frankau) and WDC: I do believe there was one, but am skeptical that it involved any kind of joint-manufacturing. My research suggests that there were joint distribution agreements in their respective home markets (i.e. UK and US), but their nature is murky to me. By the time the Hesson Guard was developed Demuth and Frankau had left family hands (coincidentally this happened around the same time); but each retained independent manufacturing within their new corporate umbrellas. It was one of the primary curiousities of Cadogan, which owned Frankau by the time that the Hesson Guard was available, that each brand brought into the fold was run by its prior owners independently for decades after the merger. Likewise Schulte, which owned WDC at that time, continued to run the WDC plant in Richmond (Queens) as its pipemaking center.

 

[ssjones]

Troy, what a wonderfu, well-researched article. I'm working my way thru some of the links. We fortunate for folks like yourself, Jesse and Jon G. for the research and literature created.
Alas, all of my older pipes are smooth, I'll have to remedy that. This is a 1938 Parker that I restored for Dave Jacobsen.
On the list of blast names, "Bark" used by Ferndown (and James Upshall) are rusticated pipes

 

[misterlowercase]

Sam and Al,

love those blasts, thanks for sharing!
Jon,

great post!

Thanks for the additional info about BBB...
...and especially for adding the Orlik Dugout to the list.
Dugout is another one of those wonderful names, I wonder why they stopped using it?
Here's an old advert from 1922, these were early sandblasts indeed,

the image is small, but highly interesting:

...a couple of actual pipes:

It's a shame that the prewar history of Orlik is so foggy.

They did heavy advertising with Punch all throughout the 20's and the addy is odd,

62 Barbican E.C. 1

In the 30's their addy is listed as

17/14 Carthusian Street
In our limited knowledge, it's usually only Old Bond Street that gets a mention.
I wish we had more prewar info about L. Orlik pipes.
The changing faces of a shrewd judge:

Something totally unrelated to sandblasts is this pipe I just got myself, I've been flip-flopping for a good while on it, secretly hoping it would sell before I bought it. I hesitated because it was $90, but I finally decided to grab it while doing this looking into of Orlik - I think the pipe is from the 30's or 40's ??? At least I hope so, yet to actually hold it. It looks in excellent condition, being preserved in the case, the green velvet of which has appeared to leech a bit of its dye onto the pipe. I've been heavy into billiards lately and this appears to be an unusual design, would I be right to call it a Quaint?
In 1935, the Sterling (10/6) was the second highest grade, only behind the Bruyere Antique (12/6),

then the Regent (7/6) and the Extra Dry (6/6), and then the usual grades we associate with Orlik,

Corona (5/6) and De Luxe (5/6).
I hope it is a nice pipe, sorry for the off-course veer...

I still haven't got the Orlik Double Sand, it's coming from Germany, and it makes me wonder when the X designation was first used in the nomenclature, this one is marked XX36, the XX pipes seem to be uncommon...

I can't help myself when seeking out these old blasts.

I'm currently bidding (hopefully to win!) an old Finlay's Knobby, it looks old to me because of the Regd stamp, that certain scripted font seemingly in my mind associated with the 30's and 40's, but I could of course be totally wrong - also, the name, Knobby, was a pipe made by pre-Barling Portland, along with their Ruf Kut, so I have a vague sense that it just might be made by good 'ol Portland...pure speculation.

BBB used to list a "Super Barrage", which I think would be a splendid blast name, but I have no idea what it was.
The Delacour DBL had a Sand-Carved which seems to indicate a blast, but who knows really?
Bromage & Hawkins had a Rox Briar which is a toss-up, but more likely to be rusticated?
The mysterious Maurice was listing blast pipes in the 20's and as a pipe company they are totally in the dusty shadows, but I'd reckon they were a fine maker, mostly because of their prices - they sold their Sandblast alongside their topline Extra for the very same price, at 16/6 and that's a fairly high price comparatively.
To drag all this out even further, my apologies - I recently got the Imperial Sangrain and it too causes emergent questions, in main part due to the encircled country of origin stamp, which in my mind I've only associated with Loewe.
But exactly which period of Loewe is the question, and were the blasts made at Hammersmith or perhaps at Haymarket?
This is the Civic connection, they dropped their own Rock blast fairly soon it seems, and went with the Imperial Sangrain for a great many years. None of the old Civic pipes that I assume to be made at the Hammersmith factory carry the encircled logo, the only other pipe I've seen with it is Loewe.
My Sangrain unfortunately has a faint stamping of this very interesting mark:

Here's a wonderful chubby Rhodesian from Loewe,

would this be considered late Haymarket or early Civic era?

http://yeoldebriars.com/guest05.html
Unknown answers at this time.

Although I don't think it's exactly early, the Imperial turned out to be a very nice pipe,

pardon the dirtiness, still to be cleaned...

So, many questions remain.
One thing for certain is the extraordinary value of the old catalogs to document this stuff.
Or any scarce ephemera for that matter.
Some people make matters worse by destroying old printed matter and breaking up the pages to sell individually, most common with rare maps, and they usually end up making much more money.
But I cannot forgive this person who tore apart a wonderful old Bewlay picture album, as an intact artifact it's an amazing thing, and probably quite scarce, they did pay a tidy sum for it, at £142.00, but now it's torn all apart and this person is trying to sell individual pages for £55 each!!!
The original album:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HOUSE-OF-BEWLAY-TOBACCO-SNUFF-MFRS-V-SCARCE-COMPANY-PHOTO-ALBUM-OF-BRANCHES-/271467450994?pt=UK_Collectables_Tobacciana_Smoking_LE&hash=item3f34b89272&nma=true&si=zw%252FxzsrGgVj3zAykbi1SVGb%252BbO0%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557
...and now the torn pages:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xbewlay+photo&_nkw=bewlay+photo&_sacat=0&_from=R40
Okay, I'll finally wrap this segment up here, been rambling too much!

::

 

[misterlowercase]

Forgot to add this.
The Orlik Dugout name dates to 1920 it seems...
http://books.google.com/books?id=8YW2yqfxtpsC&pg=PA827&lpg=PA827&dq=orlik+dugout&source=bl&ots=wAo8AQ0EDr&sig=-t4gnHtWW94Ma5t1mr2_AYqFJVQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ZACCU_CjGIWcqAafyoGQAQ&ved=0CEYQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=orlik%20dugout&f=false
:!:

 

[mso489]

Just savor the feel of blast on a sturdy briar bowl and shank. Mine are by Parker, Luciano, and Ser Jacopo. They feel

so solid and so alive.

 

[misterlowercase]

Regarding Sasieni, it looks like 1959 might be the first year of sandblasts for the Sasieni proper?

On Tuesday, August 25, 1959, a U.S. federal trademark registration was filed for RUFF-ROOT by Sasieni, Ltd., London. The USPTO has given the RUFF-ROOT trademark serial number of 72080197.

This is one of the best Ruff Roots I've seen...

http://www.smokingpipes.com/pipes/estate/england/moreinfo.cfm?product_id=70818
The 1955 RTDA lists the Windsor Sandblast, so they were blasting 2nds earlier, it's interesting to note that a Windsor was double the price of an Old England, but half the price of a Four Dot Rustic.
It's interesting to see the prices from a 1962 Owl Shop catalog:
BBB Thorneycroft = $5.95

Comoy Sandblast = $10.95

Stanwell Sandblast = $15.00

Barling Fossil (standard size) = $15.00

Sasieni 4Dot Ruff-Root = $18.50

Dunhill Shell (small sizes)= $20.00

Dunhill Shell (M and L sizes) = $22.50
I'd really like to find a Peterson's Kapruf, but I've been holding out for a fishtail, it seems that every one I've seen has a P-Lip, maybe they were all mounted like that?
Some of them have a nice plummy red finish...

 

[owen]

Scholarship respect. A Great thread.

 

[danielplainview]

Great article. Thanks for the eye candy.

 

[mkelaw]

Absolutely spectacular thread. Actually worth reading and studying and a worthwhile reference for the future. Let's have more of these rather than mindless B.S.

 

[danielplainview]

^^^Bump. Since you put so much work into this thread...

 

[peteguy]

This thread is a very good read. Bumping for a new crop of eyes.

 

[mranglophile]

Thanks for bumping...once again excellent research and photos Troy.

 

[gloucesterman]

Thanks, well written, enjoyable and informative.

 

[seacaptain]

Wow, great thread. I'm going to reserve some time and read it thoroughly.

 

[georged]

I interacted a fair amount with John Loring back in the day, and except for the fact that mrlowercase's interest isn't brand specific his scholarship is at least as thorough. And his presentation is better.
I understand that it's an apples & oranges thing since John didn't have broadband Internet for photo support, & etc., but the point stands. This thread is amazing stuff. Unprecedented in the PipeWorld that I know of.
Please keep up the good work.
And Kevin... think about giving mrlowercase his own sub-board for these sorts of articles. A bit of history is being made, here.

 

[stickframer]

mrlowercase thank you for ALL of your research, it's top notch reading.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Yes, this thread should be bookmarked!
Thanks.

 

[samcoffeeman]

I'll have to post some pics of my 1936 Parker Super Briar Bark when I'm finished cleaning it up.