Old Dunhill Date Question (calling the Duke Street Irregulars)
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That's a rare one. The "A" of course, denotes a Smooth pipe. Usually the "A" is followed by a dot, or a small lowercase "square". Strange things in them old Dunhills.........
Here's one with an "A" in circle, tho the pics are quite poor........
https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipes/new/peterson/moreinfo.cfm?product_id=57435
That's a Beauty for sure, and one you don't see too often............. :
:
Also, not much use in this case, but a good read from Mr Loring:
http://www.loringpage.com/attpipes/xgum.htm
Here's one with an "A" in circle, tho the pics are quite poor........
https://www.smokingpipes.com/pipes/new/peterson/moreinfo.cfm?product_id=57435
That's a Beauty for sure, and one you don't see too often............. :
:Also, not much use in this case, but a good read from Mr Loring:
http://www.loringpage.com/attpipes/xgum.htm
Just looked through my box of goodies...... I've got one similar to the one pictured. I'll post a pic in the morn.....
The circle around the 'A' is rare, but not unheard of. Mr. Loring did not feel that the stamp signified anything important, just that it was a normal variation at the time. The stamping on the pipe is consistent with a 1920 year of production (again per Loring).
Doc
Doc
If the A indicated Bruyere, am I to understand it was a level stamp, ergo A=best quality, B=second and so forth, or was it simply a code that Dunhill used and has no meaning other than as a signifier.
The answer is, apparently, yes. The ad on the pipedia.org Dunhill page lists 'A Quality', 'B Quality', and 'New Popular Quality' pipes at differing price points. That said, I have never seen, nor heard of, an actual 'B' stamped Dunhill in the wild. An explanation may be that qualities lesser than 'A' were not stamped Dunhill and are therefore unrecognized, or that this grading scheme was abandoned very early on.
Doc
Doc
According to an ad in a 1906 Strand Magazine, which was the first google search entry when I searched "alfred dunhill 8 argyll place regent street london", it appears that 'B' quality was HIGHER than 'A' quality.
This ad is chronologically long before Dunhill was making pipes in house.
Doc
This ad is chronologically long before Dunhill was making pipes in house.
Doc
Good to know, Ken.
I've heard that BBB also supplied pipes to Dunhill as well before he set up shop.
Following the practice of most British makers at that time, Dunhill would have bought bowls from St Claude to finish in house. They continued to do so for a very long time.
As I understand it, Alfred Dunhill realised that he was paying too much for pipes made by Charatan and, at that time, Joel Sasieni was working for Charatan and Alfred Dunhill 'lured' Joel away and he then made Dunhill pipes for Alfred in his first factory (for a while), before setting up on his own. That was the start of the Charatan/ Dunhill 'friction'.
According to John Loring, the B stamp seems to have been used only on "Absorbal" pipes from 1910 to (possibly) 1924, with the A costing six shillings six pence and the B costing eight shillings and six pence. He mentions that very limited straight grains might have been stamped B but also admits that he'd never seen one and thus judges it more likely that they were stamped only with the well-known DR stamping. For Dunhill's Bruyere pipes during this first period (c. 1910-1920), however, the A stamp indicated the first quality. In 1918, though, Dunhill began to add various stops after the A, sometimes a period, sometimes a small circle, sometimes a small rectangle or two. Until 1923, Dunhill also sometimes circled the A. John Loring speculates that "a circled A was the base grade with an uncircled A and an uncircled A followed by a round stop being the next two steps up" (pp. 37-38).
Sorry to post late, but I had to register an account. Happy to join the forum, though. I can post a photo of another encircled A Bruyere from 1922 if anyone is still interested.
Sorry to post late, but I had to register an account. Happy to join the forum, though. I can post a photo of another encircled A Bruyere from 1922 if anyone is still interested.
Concerning the "A" mark, the late Mr. John C. Loring had this to say in his book titled "The Dunhill Briar Pipe - The Patent Years and After":
"Most Bruyeres of the patent period will be found with an "A" stamped on the brand side of the shank near where the shank meets the bowl. When the Root finish was introduced in 1931 the "A" came to mean Bruyere but initially the "A" probably denoted that the pipes was of first quality."
"Most Bruyeres of the patent period will be found with an "A" stamped on the brand side of the shank near where the shank meets the bowl. When the Root finish was introduced in 1931 the "A" came to mean Bruyere but initially the "A" probably denoted that the pipes was of first quality."
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