I think that some of these pipes were bought from Lionel Melindi who owned the store called De La Concha on Avenue of The Americas (6th Avenue). I remember Lionel well, he loved Charatan and Upshall pipes.
These Charatan straight grains are so rare and when I worked at the Charatan factory I recall that at the end of a typical week there was a tray or sometimes two trays of high-grade pipes like this – possibly 10 pieces from the several hundred turned.
Since I started selling pipes in the Charatan shop, Jermyn Street in 1971 and later making pipes at the Charatan factory, I learnt that top quality straight grains were the easiest pipes to ‘sell’. In fact, no selling required.
Working at Upshall/Tilshead, at times, when money was short and I needed to pay the taxman or pay the workers their wages etc, I would pick out ten or so gorgeous plateau blocks from the shelf, cut them, Barry would turn, fit and finish them and I would drive up to London on a Saturday morning and ration them out to the ten or so shops that we supplied – cash in the bank!
In six months, I reach retirement age and recently I went onto the UK Government website to see what state pension I will receive. They have details of all my ‘wage slips’ since 1968. I do not want to look at them as this could bring up so many feelings at once which may be quite overwhelming!
I do remember my first wage at Charatan was £7 a week. This was working in the cellars of the Charatan factory when I was 13 years old (1968), My task was to help load the sacks of briar blocks stored there into the lift and take it up to the turning department. I also emptied the contents of split briar sacks and put them in new sacks. Handling briar for the first time and I was keen to learn.
I do remember Barry talking with Stan one day saying how lucky they were to get paid for doing something they really enjoy.
The pipes here with very tapered tobacco chambers were turned by Stan Haney and the others by Barry Jones or Dan Tennyson.
