The only unsmoked pipe I have is a cob, and it's living unsmoked on borrowed time.
MSO, this gave me a good chuckle.
Very interesting. Given Upshall's high standard for briar, what was the thinking behind the decision to go with injection molded stems?
Major Kenneth Barnes was hired as Managing Director of Charatan soon after Herman Lane took control of Charatan in the 1950s. During Major Barnes’ tenure Barry Jones emerged as a top craftsman. They both left Charatan about 1976.
When Major Barnes and Barry started James Upshall their stated mission was to make the highest quality, smooth, straight grained pipes in the classic English Freehand tradition (thus their slogan, ...the Tradition Continues). Quite a heady ambition that endorsed surpassing Charatan at their own game. However, like Charatan, and because that was the culture that they emerge from, the stem was treated as the second piece of the pipe if not as an afterthought.
In the 1980s, it would have been appropriate to call Otto Braun the briar czar, for he controlled the quality and flow of briar, in one form or another, to most of the world’s important pipe makers. Upshall had a special relationship with Herr Braun that they actively cultivated and the result was a continuous supply, through most of the 1980s, of the largest, most aged and best quality briar blocks in the world. No one got better wood than Upshall. Other pipe makers were amazed at the size and quality of the briar that Upshall used and surprised that they never made more than one pipe per block.
Hand made pipes are defined by the Cutter, the craftsman who determines the optimal shape and grain (and who works around flaws) that can be made with a particular block of briar. Upshall started with one of the world’s finest Cutters in Barry Jones but quite amazingly, Kennedy Barnes, who had taken control of Upshall when his father died in 1981, trained at and then emerged as a superb Cutter in his own right. Upshall had two of the finest Cutters in the world (the Cutter is usually the most skilled craftsman in a hand making workshop).
In 1982, an Upshall ‘P’ grade would have been a flawless (unfilled), smooth bowl with superior, often tight flame or straight grain, ample to large size and completely hand made from the best briar in the world. This was only their ‘meat and potatoes’ range, not their best grades (that were ‘B’, ‘G’, ‘E’, ‘X’ and ‘XX’ above them). And like Charatan, they had an injection molded vulcanite stem. The ‘P’ grade sold for $125 (in 1982) when the best lines of other well known brands were selling for about $100, also with injection molded stems, but their bowls were machine made from briar of far lower quality, with less size and grain and often with fills and sandspots.
If you want to understand just how pristine Upshall's bowl production was, look at their 2nds, commonly called ‘Tilshead’ (the town where the Upshall factory was located). Upshall made only smooth pipes so they were ‘naked’, meaning that you saw any and all imperfections in the briar. In every way the Tilshead was a James Upshall pipe except that there was a flaw or a (few) sand spot that they couldn’t work around. Of course, all Tilsheads were smooth and in 1982 they were offered in a red finish at $29.95 and a natural (unstained) finish at $39.95. Truly astonishing values but like the James Upshall pipes, they had an injection molded vulcanite stem.
For a workshop like Upshall, a hand cut stem (from rod vulcanite), would have dramatically increased the time to produce a pipe. The same ‘P’ grade pipe with a hand cut stem would have necessarily sold for about $200. Could the quality of the pipe, with the hand cut stem, have supported that price? Absolutely, but the culture was derived from Charatan and not Barling and Upshall wasn’t equipped, physically or mentally to make this change.
Ironically this is a thread about the Old England grade pipe, part of the Empire Series and these pipes
have factory hand cut rod vulcanite stems. When the Old England was first made the importer demanded that it be fitted with a hand cut stem and Barry Jones appeared with some lengths of rod vulcanite and immediately fashioned a beautiful mouthpiece. They had the skill to do it but this tells the rest of the tale. Upshall had considered and even tested hand making stems so they were acutely aware of the impact that it would have had on their price.
The Empire Series is what could have been, the complete James Upshall pipe. Perhaps no other pipe maker was more pure in the pursuit of bowl perfection and looking back it may seem easy to question their decision to use injection molded stems but at the time it was a prudent business decision that led to them becoming the largest selling handmade pipe in the world. If you want a world class pipe, the Empire Series is an excellent choice.
