My Civic Duty to Smoke a Civic Pipe?

[agnosticpipe]

Here's a British pipe you don't see too often. Part of the history of British pipes is the Civic brand. Not a lot of info about these pipes but started up as part of the Imperial Tobacco Co. and ended up part of the large parent company of Cadogan along with other pipes made in England. Nice enough little pipe with a couple of sand pits. The nomenclature was weak on both sides of the pipe, but still readable. Stamped Civic, Royale, London Made and Made In England with shape number 358. Just finished cleaning it up last night and am about to give it a try today.

 

[damacene]

I've never heard of this brand before but she's a beaut! Love the shape and grain.

 

[xrundog]

Civic made some nice pipes.

 

[anotherbob]

thanks for your service

 

[sablebrush52]

I believe that I have a Civic catalog from the 1930's. I'll take a look to see if I can find it and see if there's any useful information about the company that I can share.

 

[OzPiper]

Here's a British pipe you don't see too often. Part of the history of British pipes is the Civic brand. Not a lot of info about these pipes but started up as part of the Imperial Tobacco Co. and ended up part of the large parent company of Cadogan along with other pipes made in England.

Nice pipe

I collect old Britwoods and I’m perplexed as to why old Civic pipes are relatively uncommon in the estate market compared with brands such as BBB, GBD, Barling, Loewes, Dunhill etc

Civic and Imperial Tobacco being cornerstone brands of Cadogan, one would expect them to be somewhat abundant

My 2

 

[huntertrw]

My Civic Duty to Smoke a Civic Pipe?​

In a word, yes!

Here is a link to the citation for Civic on the pipedia.org Website. Interesting company, that one is.

Please let us know how it smokes.

 

[agnosticpipe]

Nice pipe

I collect old Britwoods and I’m perplexed as to why old Civic pipes are relatively uncommon in the estate market compared with brands such as BBB, GBD, Barling, Loewes, Dunhill etc

Civic and Imperial Tobacco being cornerstone brands of Cadogan, one would expect them to be somewhat abundant

My 2
View attachment 406840View attachment 406841

Wow, those are really nice pipes! I'm sure the silver mount pipes like that pre-date mine by quite a bit. I figure my pipe is probably from the 60s or 70s.

 

[agnosticpipe]

In a word, yes!

Here is a link to the citation for Civic on the pipedia.org Website. Interesting company, that one is.

Please let us know how it smokes.

Thanks for the info. I've seen some of this before but I'm still intrigued by the history of some of these lesser known British pipes.
This pipe smokes great. It's a small pipe but has a nice open draw and is easy to smoke.

 

[jguss]

I figure my pipe is probably from the 60s or 70s.

Since you say it’s stamped London Made it was manufactured sometime during the roughly seventeen year period between the introduction of the Royale in or slightly before 1953 and Civic’s relocation to Essex by 1970.

The Royale was, in its day, one of the company’s top tier offerings. This abbreviated price list, from a 1953 trade publication, makes that clear:

 

[agnosticpipe]

Since you say it’s stamped London Made it was manufactured sometime during the roughly seventeen year period between the introduction of the Royale in or slightly before 1953 and Civic’s relocation to Essex by 1970.

The Royale was, in its day, one of the company’s top tier offerings. This abbreviated price list, from a 1953 trade publication, makes that clear:

View attachment 406873

Thanks for this. I like how on these threads sometimes information keeps coming out of the woodwork! So it looks like maybe my pipe is from the mid 1950s up to 1970? And I'm not sure how British pricing at that time relates to US prices.

 

[jguss]

Thanks for this. I like how on these threads sometimes information keeps coming out of the woodwork! So it looks like maybe my pipe is from the mid 1950s up to 1970? And I'm not sure how British pricing at that time relates to US prices.

Actually your pipe could be even older. I did a little more digging and found that the Civic Royale was actually first introduced in the Fall of 1935. Like many models offered by British briar pipe manufacturers the Royale disappeared from price and brand lists early in WW2, a casualty of the need to trim offerings in light of severe material & manpower shortages. Some of these models eventually reappeared a few years after the war ended as supply chains began to recover, others were gone for good.

Here’s an advertisement touting The newest addition to the World Famous ‘Civic’ Pipes. It appeared in the October 1935 issue of the UK trade journal Tobacco:

 

[sablebrush52]

Here are some scans from the September 1939 Civic dealer's catalog. Included is the first page of their price list, which shows the various brands of pipes that they offered.

 

[jguss]

Hey Jesse, if you look at pages 7-9 is the Civic Royale listed there?

 

[sablebrush52]

Hey Jesse, if you look at pages 7-9 is the Civic Royale listed there?

Nope. They list various shapes by model number and a few have a name attached, like "Bolton", but no Civic Royale.

 

[jguss]

How irritating that pipe makers were so inconsiderate as to leave incomplete and occasionally inconsistent information behind.

 

[agnosticpipe]

I think I got it figured out about the Royale designation...

 

[sablebrush52]

How irritating that pipe makers were so inconsiderate as to leave incomplete and occasionally inconsistent information behind.

There is an Imperial Royale, if that counts. Maybe by 1939 they couldn't support two Royales...

There was a Depression going on and all.

 

[huntertrw]

There is an Imperial Royale, if that counts.

There was also a Casino Royale...no, wait, that was Ian Fleming. Never mind!