Info About Dunhill's "Not For Sale" Pipes
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Good lord, people give it a rest. The length of the argument is no sign of its validity.
To be fair, I didn’t think this thread was actually a debate, but rather some interesting information posted by the OP (george) in relation to a recent sale, and then just banter. Kinda like the faux-aristocratic talk that accompanies a cheap bottle of wine, “oh yea, the drought of 2019 really impacted the region’s subsequent vintage, bringing out the tannins..” when all parties know the bottle was purchased as it had the most gold stickers/medals on it in the below $10 range.
I dunno, maybe my kiwi sense of humour has completely misinterpreted this whole thing. ?
I dunno, maybe my kiwi sense of humour has completely misinterpreted this whole thing. ?
It's almost, almost, like someone is trying to improve the market for used Lee pipes.
Nah, they're fungible, just like all high quality pipes are the same
A hillbilly can spin a yarn for a good one potato. A hillbilly lawyer can spin it for at least three potatoes.
in the hills, a traveling evangelist was often rated by how long they could keep a sermon going. Since it took about an hour to eat a raw potato, you can piece together the rest. @Briar Lee is a three potato preacher, we ah, procurator.
in the hills, a traveling evangelist was often rated by how long they could keep a sermon going. Since it took about an hour to eat a raw potato, you can piece together the rest. @Briar Lee is a three potato preacher, we ah, procurator.
I don’t claim to be a Lee expert extraordinaire.
I’m a serious accumulator of used pipes, from yard sales, junk (antique) shops, and on eBay.
I didn’t realize what a Lee was, until I’d bought about a dozen on eBay and realized that while you must be very particular buying an old used Kaywoodie, because most three hole stinger pipes are no better than other factory smokers, if that pipe had three Lee stars it was going to be nearly the quality of a pre war, four hole, Super or Flame Grain Kaywoodie,,,,every time, and every one.
Lee advertised a $$3.50 One Star Lee in the very first 1946 introductory catalog. After that it’s gone. I’ve never seen a one star.
And in that catalog Lee advertised Briarlee pipes, if you didn’t quite want to reach for the stars, at $1, $1.50, and $2.50.
So, in 1946 there were three grades of Briarlee.
Lee’s improvement (and it was definitely an improvement, Lee pipes don’t leak, don’t weld shut, and the stinger is removable, and the look is much neater) on the Kaywoodie Syncro Stem was never really bragged on by Lee, and it must have taken more time and money than a push stem, because what few Briarlees I’ve seen had push stems.
My working theory is, the top grade in 1946 $2.50 Briarlee (later $4) is a very rare Four Star or surprisingly more common $25 Five Star that didn’t make the grade after initial briar turning, and before a stem was made.
As to Pipe Maker, they come in all the Lee shapes, have Lee stingers, but use a cheaper Kaywoodie style screw mount. My theory is those were Two and Three Star Lee rejects that Lee probably wholesaled to a big dealer like Wally Frank, if Lee wasn’t Wally Frank by another name.
So keep looking for high grade Briarlee and Pipe Maker pipes.
You don’t want to overlook an orchid, while searching for a rose.
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I miss Red Foley, and the Ozark Jamboree.
My White Spot NOT FOR SALE pipe has silently cleared the customs station at Frankfurt Germany, and has been lifted airborne towards America.
Fr, 08.10.2021, 20:02, IPZ FrankfurtThe shipment will be transported to the destination country/destination area and, from there, handed over to the delivery organization. (Homepage / online shipment tracking: USPS.com® - USPS Tracking® - https://tools.usps.com/go/TrackConfirmAction)
Export parcel center.
Destination country/region: United States
Tu, 05.10.2021, 23:28 hours
PATSY CLINE ON OZARK JAMBOREE
Real or fake, I’ll have the only White Spot pipe to smoke at deer camp, a half mile South of the actual town of Bug Tussle.
Not even the Mayor of Bug Tussle, smoked a White Spot pipe.
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"Submitted for your approval"
You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, the Briar Lee Zone!
You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead - your next stop, the Briar Lee Zone!
I want to know how the lover of Lee pipes knows: Briarlee was a sub brand but doesn't know that Gold Coast was also. Gold Coast pipes are in the same Lee catalog! Then there are also at least some other pipes marked with the same lion rampart stamping as Gold Coast and "Selected" or "Antique" which makes it very likely they are also very likely made by the Lee company. But "Pipemaker" pipes were a product of Mail Pouch. Come on!
I think the horse is far from dead. People involved in arguments, or sex, are rarely both ready to stop at the same time. Unless terminated by a moderator I think this thread has a long way to run.
Absolutely correct, although technically speaking the Gold Coast was a post-transition introduction.
Terminated by a moderator?
Not a chance. My new theory is that "Briar Lee" is actually Kevin himself, having grown bored with the board after 15 years... and letting his Inner Adolescent come out to play.
There is one source that lists Gold Coast as a Lee sub brand, but I’ve never seen a Gold Coast. The advertisements I’ve seen show a $1 pipe sold through a department store chain, that has the capability to accept a filter or use a “condenser” (big stinger).
What leads me to suspect that Lee, was really Wally Frank are several things.
Wally Frank probably had the largest mail order pipe business in the United States, and Frank had the mailing lists to go with it.
The Lee screw stem looks to be an infringement on a Kaywoodie. On a Pipe Maker it’s a downright copy, although an improved one, with a removable stinger.
Look at this famous Wally Frank advertisement from the 1930’s
There’s no big briar shipments in early 1946 when somebody who makes Pipes by Lee launches what turned out to be a 25 year run of what appears to be a mail order pipe business, in downtown New York City, that caters to the top end of the pipe market.I knew a One star Lee was a unicorn, but the vast majority of Lee pipes I own are Three Star pipes.
Of Wally Frank was Lee, he targeted his market as well as all the Facebook and Google marketing geniuses do today.
There’s a certain buyer who thinks that you should buy the middle, not the cheapest or the best. Lee hammered that market for $10 pipes in 1946. Yet he also sold quite a few of the most expensive regularly cataloged pipes on the earth, the $25 Lee Five Star grade.
But while we wait for my White Spot NOT FOR SALE to loft it’s way over the storm tossed Atlantic and safely find a safe haven near Bug Tussle, in the Lord’s own Missouri Ozarks, I have a question perhaps some, could help me with.
Someday, I might find the nearly mythical early 1946 Lee One Star.
Ot could fetch as much as $30 on eBay if it’s unsmoked in it’s original box, with accoutrements.
How did Lee, insert those 7 pointed stars he used until he raised the price, to $5 per star, switched over to a beautiful 5 pointed star, and started polishing the stems and pipes more?
You hardly find a 7 pointed Two Star, but if there is a real, genuine One Star out there, I’ll bet it only has the middle star.
The material is a gold and base metal mix, on early pipes, and it appears to have more gold content when they switch to 5 pointed stars.
And we all know thaf Mail Pouch made signs out of old barns, and Lee made Briarlees.
STORMS OF LIFE
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