James Upshall Pipes - A Discussion
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A couple of years ago: most of the ones on the site have been sold for quite some time.
He hasn’t indicated whether or not more are in the works, afaik.
Would be nice if he did make some more.
Purchased mine back in the summer,and have not been back to Scandpipes.com website since.
From the British magazine/pamphlet "PIPE LINE" 1983 No 46 pg 12 . Interview of, under the Young Pipemakers
heading, Kennedy George Upshall Barnes of the Tilshead Pipe Co!
I will try to get a good scan of it tomorrow not just this phone pic.
heading, Kennedy George Upshall Barnes of the Tilshead Pipe Co!
I will try to get a good scan of it tomorrow not just this phone pic.
My word! This is weird. I think I remember this 'interview' was made in Solihull at the AITS show. In this year, I kept explaining that my ancestor's name was James Archimedes Upshall. My mother, at the time, read one of these articles and asked what are you saying here? Your Great grandfather's name was James Archelaus Upshall - so I need to correct this now! He was an amazing cabinet maker who made some really beautiful stuff.
Here is a better version from an actual scanner. Jacques P. Cole was the editor of Pipe Line and 3 consultants listed as D.D. Merton, C.R. McConnell, and J.W. Sanderson so I wondered if one of them actually did the interview.
Well, it was not Mick or Ken McConnell and it wasn't Derek Merton because he never really spoke to me as I think he was an extremely busy man and quite important too! So it must have been J.W. Sanderson who I am not familiar with.
Here's another one just refreshed Tilshead. Do I correctly understand that this pipe was made before 1984?
This is a lovely Tilshead bent and made in the 1980s. I do know that sometime after I left the Tilshead Pipe Co in 1989 Barry started to engrave the Tilshead pipes. Gorgeous curve to the mouthpiece - definitely an early one.
Thank you, Mr Barnes! For me it's an honour to meet you here!
This is one of my favorite Tilsheads I've ever come across. Don't see freehands often.
I think that this is a lovely piece, and created by Barry in the 1980s. It does look familiar and I am sure that I have picked this one up a few times to admire it.The mouthpiece may be a replacement - but really well executed.
Found this on Ebay sometime back. Sullivan Powell was a tobacco-pipe store in London years ago. I saw the engraving "Made by Hand" which looked suspiciously like an Upshall/Tilshead pipe. Paid more for the postage than the pipe! Ken Barnes has commented that Upshall did indeed make house pipes for Sullivan Powell and this was a good example. Cleaned up pretty well. Hoppes
Before
After
Before
After
You have brought this one back really well! Yes, the briar used to make this piece was from the Arta Company, Arta, Greece. We bought some MFF 4-5 cross grain blocks (extra long ebauchon blocks) from this saw mill in order to fill a huge demand for the Canadian shape at the time. This one needed to be 'cut back' due to a flaw on the shank. I loved going to Sullivan Powell in The Burlington Arcade as the manager there, Harry Horrowitz was as passionate about pipes as I was. He used to sell lots of Upshalls too & high grade straight grains. We had some great times talking with customers and I always walked out of there with a big order!
I loved the old Burlington Arcade. Do you recall what the max. Number of tobacconists in the arcade? IIRC, there were three when I first went there 50 years ago.
Here is one of mine. It has James Upshall in an oval and a P one one side and Tilshead, next line England, next line Made By Hand.
I like this 'P' grade. The date of this one is after 1981 (I think) and before 1983. The stamp marks have been 'stamped' rather than engraved but not stamped by hand because the pressure is too consistent in my opinion. I bought the stamping machine we used from Sasieni in 1981 I think. In 1983 or maybe early 1984, our USA agents (Pete Siegel) had the idea of using a pantograph machine to engrave the Upshall name and logo which we started doing then. At the time, he and his brother had a pipe-store in Long Island and they used this type of engraving machine to engrave Zippo lighters etc for gifts. Pete had the idea of trying it out on a basket pipe which he did and it works so well that nowadays quite a few pipe-makers use this method.