GBD Date Help (French made)

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ssjones

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May 11, 2011
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A buddy in Australia picked up this silver banded GBD but is having difficulty understanding the hallmark. I've never seen a GBD silver band like this one, so I was of no help. I can't recall ever having seen a GBD silver band with French hallmarks.

He wrote me:
Photos of the French GBD stamped GBD in oval and letters M, R, C, Ld in squares as in the Pipedia articles on Marechal Ruchon & Cie and GBD. Below the letters are a small diamond and a minuscule (inverted) boar head which are hallmarks for French silver. Sorry about the poor photo quality.

On the shank is GBD in oval on one side, and NICHOLAS and LYON (underneath) on the other side.

It does look like the stamps indicate that this pipe was made sometime AFTER Marechal Ruchon et Cie became Marechal Ruchon & Co Ltd There are numerous photos of similar stamps in the Pipedia GBD article, but unfortunately no Help in dating.


Pictures below.

FullSizeRender (1).jpgFullSizeRender (2).jpgFullSizeRender (3).jpgFullSizeRender (4).jpgFullSizeRender.6jpg.JPGFullSizeRender.jpg
 

jguss

Lifer
Jul 7, 2013
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Hi Al,

French pipes are decidedly not my thing, but I'll point out that your friend didn't transcribe the nomenclature entirely correctly; it's "Nicolas", not "Nicholas", and there is no "and" between "Nicolas" and "Lyon".

So my first hypothesis was that a man with the surname Nicolas, based in Lyon, was the original seller of the pipe. It turns out that there is indeed a famous shop in Lyon run by a family of that name. The shop was founded by Jean Nicolas in Lyon in 1885 (see: Pipes Jean Nicolas Fabrication et restauration de pipes en bruyère Lyon - http://www.pipes-jeannicolas.com/maison-tradition.html). The shop still exists today, under the management of the fourth generation of Jean's line. I'm aware that the website makes it clear the Nicolas family carves their own pipes, but my suspicion is that a century ago they were selling other pipes too. That's just a guess, and of course it doesn't go far to help you date the pipe.

Best,
Jon
 

ChuckMijo

Part of the Furniture Now
Sep 26, 2020
775
2,348
If it’s any thing like this one it’s from 1903 -1920. It’s all I could find. It’s from a website in Russian or Greek. Hope this may help.404A4DC0-7459-4A6F-87C9-0CDD2D717DFD.jpegC0131882-25B5-4B9B-AD1D-7622686E0AA9.jpegFEB153F5-8B60-4E51-A402-1D3A898857FF.jpeg4B2A84E2-17F0-4B43-935A-6322B3BF5262.jpeg48847EBD-78B7-4DA4-9AA1-A21EDF262C7E.jpeg404A4DC0-7459-4A6F-87C9-0CDD2D717DFD.jpegC0131882-25B5-4B9B-AD1D-7622686E0AA9.jpegFEB153F5-8B60-4E51-A402-1D3A898857FF.jpeg4B2A84E2-17F0-4B43-935A-6322B3BF5262.jpeg48847EBD-78B7-4DA4-9AA1-A21EDF262C7E.jpeg
 
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ssjones

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What differentiates the two from the 20's and the 80's? It seems unlikely both era's would the same stamped stem logo? Hallmarked (British) pipes from the 1930's use a smaller, brass rondell. I'm sure sure when rondells first came into use.
 

ChuckMijo

Part of the Furniture Now
Sep 26, 2020
775
2,348
This is the same one as above. I attached the wrong one. When I get a half decent WiFi signal I will upload the one from later. And take these dates with a grain of salt. I couldn’t read Or understand anything. And the dates were only in page description.
 
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ChuckMijo

Part of the Furniture Now
Sep 26, 2020
775
2,348
I tried to upload the screen shot from the 1980s pipe. It would not let me. Says file to large. It won’t let me save it as a pic either You can find that one on a old eBay listings. But your friends is like this one. Hope this helps.
 
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