GBD Unique

[danielplainview]

I cleaned up this beautiful old GBD Unique for a forum friend. Although he usually wishes to remain anonymous, I thought this pipe needed to be seen. This is a nice original survivor. It had some mild tooth chatter, stem oxidization, and some cake build up, but was in overall good condition. I spared this one from the buffer and hand polished it with Halcyon wax.

 

[fnord]

That is one beautiful hunk of briar, Dave.
I've got a handful of vintage GBDs and would like to know how you preserve the gold colored GBD roundel when you're cleaning the stem.
Cheers!
Fnord

 

[ssjones]

Dave has a great technique (Unique!) for preserving and enhancing those rondells. You definitely want to put a dab of grease on the rondell when soaking the stem. A few years ago,I remove some of the brass in the clean-up process and I've been more careful since.
Those Unique pieces are show pieces. Many sales ads say reflect that they were carved by Horry Jamieson, but I don't think that is a given.

 

[danielplainview]

I didn't soak the stem for this one. I just wet sanded. The rhondelle was mint so I didn't want to disturb the finish. Fnord, I don't have any tricks for removing oxidization around the logos. I just carefully wet sand around them.
I talked the owner into taking credit for this Unique. It belongs to Scrooge. He has an extensive collection of great old classics but never brags about them. Me on the other hand, I'll post a dozen photos of a $5 Grabow.

 

[gloucesterman]

Maybe so but when you're finished with them they look like $500 Dunhills!!!!

 

[scrooge]

Thanks Dave! Great Job as usual.

 

[ejames]

Cool pipe ! Nice work Dave !

 

[jpmcwjr]

As usual, a very fine job. Interesting pipe.

 

[scrooge]

Coming up for sale soon.

 

[huntertrw]

Regarding the GBD Unique, author Richard Carleton Hacker had this to say in his book titled "Rare Smoke - The Ultimate Guide to Pipe Smoking": "Like the Charatan freehand,the GBD Unique was one of the innovators of the freeform design long before Danish pipemakers began adding their own flair to this style. These Jemeson-made, hand-carved sculptures from the 1950s through the late 1970s are in a collectible class all their own, and often can still be found with their original blue-satin cases."

 

[huntertrw]

As I think about it I believe that I have previously seen an image of this pipe (or one neigh well like it, although because it is a "Unique" I cannot imagine that there was more than one), but I do not recall where.

 

[newbroom]

There are a couple Unique's at the auction site...here's one, certainly unique!