Help Identify: MLC / Imperial Oom Paul ?

[jship079]

were did you get the pipe? Is it possible that this is a fake? Like the old dunhills I'm pretty sure knock off pipes were a big thing in the past just a thought I hope you do have a pipe over 100 years old!
Is it normal for the anchor to be stamped sideways opposite from the way they are in the legends?

 

[olderthandirt]

I have had some luck from the folks over at the Grabow forum. A start at least.

ozark southpaw had pics of a one of his pipes that showed an MLC stamp almost identical to what's on mine.

Apparently there are a couple of other members there who have more knowledge on earlier Linkman pipes, looking forward to what they may have to offer.
1892 is the year given when Louis Linkman founded his pipe company. Silver bands imported from England for a start-up, sure, why not!
I got the pipe at the estate sale of a passed lawyer jship. Fake or imitation, couldn't even guess but yes, I have seen other pieces of work with varying orientation of the individual symbols. Is there any significance to the anchor being upright vs on it's side, don't know that either.
Ack! I dun seem to know anything! (-;

 

[olderthandirt]

Well, the folks over at the Grabow forums verified that this is indeed an OLD Linkman. No one recognized the Imperial line but agree it most likely predates the inception of the Dr. Grabow line.

It was also posited that the older pipes of this style probably had amber stems and that mine had most likely been re-stemmed at some point.
Drat. Just imagine what this thing would have looked like with a mongo bent stem of amber! That would have been nice for sure.
Any way, the likelihood of this having been made in 1892 is well within the realm of possibility. I plan to shop the photo to a few silver collecting sites, see if I can't get some further input on the hallmarks.
Been fun looking into this, thanks for all your thoughts on it folks!

 

[pentangle]

Grabow started in 1982 as" M. Linkman & Co" so we could say : (M) (L)inkman & (C)o.......MLC.Think that's not the silver mark Maker but an old mark of Linkman.Probably they ordered in Birmingham the silver bands asking to print MLC on them. That seems to be a reasonable reasoning

Maurizio