Was there a market for Marxman knockoffs? I have one from an estate lot, it the stamp doesn’t have the arrow around the name, but on the stem. Just curious. It’s a good smoking pipe.
Marxman Catalog
- Thread starter Briar Lee
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That’s a MasterCraft import. Made by an overseas factory and after 1953. These pipes are not true Marxman pipes and are hit and miss in terms of quality.
I believe those are real Marxman pipes made in NYC after the sale to Mastercraft and before contract production in France. If there’s not a country of origin stamp it’s made in USA. Who knows how long Mastercraft kept the shop open?
Test a Marxman as you’d test an Havana cigar. Smoke it.
If it’s the real coin, you’ll know.
BTW the French pipes were not bad. Mine have way, way better fancy grain figure than USA made production.
But the mojos are gone. They are no longer a distinctive smoking pipe.
Algeria was a big country, and there had to have been different grades of Algerian briar.
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I've sold many of Marxman's carved figural pipes over the years (a few shown below). Just yesterday, a friend called me and said she had a friend that wanted to talk to me about pipes. Turns out if was Robert Marx's grand-daughter. She's looking for Marxman pipes. She said some family member had sold off all of his collection a long time ago and other family member had nothing left to remember him by. She has stories of sitting on his lap while he carved chunks of briar. Just thought it an interesting anecdote to share with Marxman fans!
