Fake Dunhill Pipes on Etsy?

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sablebrush52

The Bard Of Barlings
Jun 15, 2013
19,786
45,398
Southern Oregon
jrs457.wixsite.com
A conundrum: For $10.97 you can get a two ounce tin of any Esoterica, and for the same price, an 8 ounce bag.... Hmmmmm. Always tough decisions.

Oh, wait, is someone saying 1960 prices for Esotericas isn't a real thing??
And, it's all available and in stock! They even wrote a short inaccurate history behind the Esoterica blends.

Feel free to drop in and say hello, next time you're in Blackwell, TX.
 

jpmcwjr

Moderator
Staff member
May 12, 2015
24,755
27,365
Carmel Valley, CA
And, it's all available and in stock! They even wrote a short inaccurate history behind the Esoterica blends.

Feel free to drop in and say hello, next time you're in Blackwell, TX.
Or is it VPN'ed from Belarus or summat like that?.

Regardless, I am going to undercut craig61a. I'll get the 999 tins of each blend, but sell for only $40 per bag.....
 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,459
When you get into the White Spot Never-Never-Land of price, you don't know where you are. If you order a Sav or a Pete, even if you go high end, you somewhat know what you're getting and how much it should cost. New White Spots aren't priced like comparable pipes, so you don't know where you are. It's like Florida real estate.
 
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runscott

Lifer
Jun 3, 2020
1,080
2,333
Washington State
I sure don't know.

But an oddity: all those listed on the first page are said to weigh 90 grams or a bit more. I cannot believe that's accurate.

If you wanted to take a gamble, I believe you're safe with Etsy. If the pipe doesn't match the photos, you just ask for a refund. If they don't give it, Etsy will give it. Am I right about this? (I've only bought two things on Etsy, no problems with either).

Having said that, I'm NOT in on this :)
 

ykw5264

Starting to Get Obsessed
Feb 26, 2022
101
146
D.C.
I just loaded my cart with 999 tins of Penzance… Who could pass up deal like that? I can flip em here for $50 a pop and clean up. ???
The price and stock are really attractive. But don't pay, don't expect PayPal to get your money back
 
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ssjones

Moderator
Staff member
May 11, 2011
18,447
11,355
Maryland
postimg.cc
I can with great confidence, state that this one is NOT the Dunhill we know. The seller does have a qualifier in the listing.

 

jpberg

Lifer
Aug 30, 2011
2,956
6,709
I can with great confidence, state that this one is NOT the Dunhill we know. The seller does have a qualifier in the listing.

That’s so honest that I’ll laugh at anyone who thinks they’re buying a Dunhill.
 

FLDRD

Lifer
Oct 13, 2021
1,749
6,588
Arkansas
I too came across the site with Esoterica whilst doing a search a few weeks back.
Never had the brand, was searching due to the continual hype.
I knew it was a scam as soon as I saw they had everything in stock, and discounted too!
 

lordnantwich

Starting to Get Obsessed
May 15, 2022
149
1,916
Rhode Island, USA
nantwichs.etsy.com
Unless I'm missing something obvious this make and finish wasn't ever produced there are slight variations on each of the sellers listings. Also the seller lists a shipping time of 4 weeks. Finally the shop has just today closed its doors after posting about 6 new "Dunhill" makes and models.
 
Feb 12, 2022
3,452
47,898
31
North Georgia mountains.
I can with great confidence, state that this one is NOT the Dunhill we know. The seller does have a qualifier in the listing.

And it's got bids! Baffling
 
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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,837
13,910
Humansville Missouri
One of the almost limitless joys of accumulating Pipes by Lee is the chances of a Lee Star Grade being counterfeited in today’s market is nonexistent.

This is true, even though for a good many years after 1946 a Five Star Lee was the finest and most expensive cataloged production pipe on earth, selling for over twice the price of a Flame Grain Kaywoodie and over a third more than a regular cataloged Dunhill,

Since price has rationed every article of commerce from earliest times, the overwhelming majority of Lees are Three Star Grade, which early on wee $10, the same price as a Kaywoodie Flame Grain.

But for his $10, the Lee Three Star customer got exactly the same pipe, with same workmanship, and made on the same line, as if he’d checked the box for a $25 Five Star. The only difference was beauty of the grain, and the lower grades were so beautiful it was an extremely incremental gain.

But the price of Lee Star Grades does seem to be rising, and if I saw a stamped star era Five Star Lee I’d be careful. I’ve never seen a stamped star Five Star, which is curious because inflation made a $25 pipe much more affordable in 1970 than 1955, when there were 5 pointed star Five Star Lees. I’d guess that even during the stamped star era, the Five Stars kept right on with inlaid gold stars.

Unlike a white spot, try counterfeiting a genuine gold inlaid 7 or 5 pointed star Lee with an invisible, recessed, adjustable, double screwed, removable stinger fitment hand adjusted to join stummel and stem. It could be done, but the odds are counterfeiters will continue to counterfeit the white spot and universal push stem.

It would be far cheaper and easier than trying to fake these.

E42A9E2D-5602-427D-8EB8-6F630D600158.jpeg
Although they appear identical, each stem of each Lee was hand fitted, so that none are interchangeable with another Lee, even of the same grade and shape.

7CE031DF-3AD7-497F-863C-5863B1623BFD.jpeg3552E386-BE47-41D2-89EB-54E015CCD541.jpegE682E9ED-CB06-44DC-B5AE-6C4F9E49FB28.jpeg949FA186-3890-401C-BEB9-4719D99D70DC.jpeg
 
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beefeater33

Lifer
Apr 14, 2014
4,090
6,196
Central Ohio
One of the almost limitless joys of accumulating Pipes by Lee is the chances of a Lee Star Grade being counterfeited in today’s market is nonexistent.

This is true, even though for a good many years after 1946 a Five Star Lee was the finest and most expensive cataloged production pipe on earth, selling for over twice the price of a Flame Grain Kaywoodie and over a third more than a regular cataloged Dunhill,

Since price has rationed every article of commerce from earliest times, the overwhelming majority of Lees are Three Star Grade, which early on wee $10, the same price as a Kaywoodie Flame Grain.

But for his $10, the Lee Three Star customer got exactly the same pipe, with same workmanship, and made on the same line, as if he’d checked the box for a $25 Five Star. The only difference was beauty of the grain, and the lower grades were so beautiful it was an extremely incremental gain.

But the price of Lee Star Grades does seem to be rising, and if I saw a stamped star era Five Star Lee I’d be careful. I’ve never seen a stamped star Five Star, which is curious because inflation made a $25 pipe much more affordable in 1970 than 1955, when there were 5 pointed star Five Star Lees. I’d guess that even during the stamped star era, the Five Stars kept right on with inlaid gold stars.

Unlike a white spot, try counterfeiting a genuine gold inlaid 7 or 5 pointed star Lee with an invisible, recessed, adjustable, double screwed, removable stinger fitment hand adjusted to join stummel and stem. It could be done, but the odds are counterfeiters will continue to counterfeit the white spot and universal push stem.

It would be far cheaper and easier than trying to fake these.

View attachment 153920
Although they appear identical, each stem of each Lee was hand fitted, so that none are interchangeable with another Lee, even of the same grade and shape.

View attachment 153921View attachment 153922View attachment 153923View attachment 153924
I believe the stars were made of brass........... I've had about a dozen Lee pipes pass through my hands. The stars are usually green when I get them, but they buff out to that "Gold" color...........
But Gold doesn't tarnish to green...........
Do you have any proof that the stars are made of gold, or are you just referring to the color of the stars?
 

Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,837
13,910
Humansville Missouri
I believe the stars were made of brass........... I've had about a dozen Lee pipes pass through my hands. The stars are usually green when I get them, but they buff out to that "Gold" color...........
But Gold doesn't tarnish to green...........
Do you have any proof that the stars are made of gold, or are you just referring to the color of the stars?
The early stars are definitely not 24 carat gold, yet they aren’t 100% brass either. I had a jeweler once examine one of my early Lees, and he pronounced them as “jeweler’s gold”. There are lots of definitions of “jeweler’s gold”, but the most common may be 9 carat gold.


Brass would turn green and oxidize, like a brass cartridge. Lee inlaid stars only darken, sometimes quite heavily. A Lee inlaid gold star will easily polish back up to a yellow gold color. Better gold alloys such as 10 carat or finer gold tarnish but don’t turn dark,

If you take a jeweler’s loupe and examine the stars on early Lees, you’ll see that many were not perfectly inlaid, especially the 5 pointed star era pipes. Each stem was hand fitted, so the final step must have been grading the pipe and hand inlaying the stars. Each star would have only had a penny or so worth of gold, the labor even then being the most cost,

The lower grade stamped star era pipes used something that engraver’s use today called “engraver’s gilding” or “Dutch metal”. It’s essentially fake gold, and soon wears off. It was applied by hand, but not inlaid as the early pipes.


Later in thd stamped star era, at least the lower grade Lees lost the recessed aluminum fitment, replaced by a push stem. I have one Lee with stamped stars on the shank, not the stem, and a Kaywoodie style fitment, and obviously a molded stem, and (horrors) was varnished. But even that extremely late Lee had excellently tight grained, quality briar.

Dunhill, Lee, and Kaywoodie all made essentially the same product, even in the same shapes, from the same briar and vulcanite suppliers. Dunhill never lowered quality standards in the slightest, except for discontinuing oil curing, which only matters for the first pouch of tobacco.

Kaywoodie wound up being a cheap, varnished, drugstore pipe, before being resurrected, but current production doesn’t use Kaywoodie ball fitments, or inlaid cloverleafs.

Lee was like a Packard. At one time the most expensive, prestigious regular production product of it’s kind.

At least there were no Lee Packardbakers.:)