Peper's Pipe?

[pipesticks]

I recently acquired a small pipe lot on ebay. One was this old school smaller billiard with screw-in tenon, very "Grabowish or Kaywoodieish". The pipe was stamped "Peper's 100th Anniversary" on the shank. I figured perhaps it was an old pipe shop or something.
Turns out Peper's is a long lost tobacco. I found tins on ebay...Christian Peper's Pouch Mixture. The older tins are marked "Since 1852" and were owned by Bloch Brothers Tobacco Company and the newer tins show Kentucky Club as the manufacturer, which I'm guessing is who owned them during the tobacco's centennial celebration. So, the pipe dates to 1952. Pretty cool history!
But, I still don't know who actually made the pipe. The stem has a white "VW" stamped on it in block letters. Pipedia and pipephil were no help. Anybody ever seen one of these pipes or have an idea who might have made it?

 

[jpmcwjr]

Photos would be very helpful.
Once your photos are on a photo hosting site (such as Imgur.com; Photobucket; Postimage; Dropbox, etc.), or on virtually any site, select the full image, then Control-click (Mac) or Right-click (Windows) on the image itself, then choose copy image location. Now paste that URL (the full web address, which should end in .jpg) into the IMG box in the reply window of the thread you're posting to.
The site's album is also a good choice.

 

[pipesticks]

The only photo I have right now is from the listing and most likely not much help. BTW it cleaned up amazingly. Weird thing, the varnish on it began to come off while scrubbing with a toothbrush and Murphy's Soap under the faucet. So, I sanded it off so just the stain remained and hit it with 5 coats of Paragon wax. It looks fantastic now and smokes like a dream. It's the crusty one on the right...

 

[pipesticks]

I have no idea what the pipe on the left is either. Name is mostly worn off but it starts with an M in fancy script font, perhaps McA..., MeL...and looks like it ends in a Y...can't really tell even under a magnifier. It is also stamped "300"

 

[dmcmtk]

Wouldn't mind seeing the markings on the pipe on the left.

 

[pipesticks]

Wouldn't mind seeing the markings on the pipe on the left. []

To me, it looks like maybe McAffrey oe something similar...it has two legs like a script lower case "ff" or pp" or "gg" would have. I've been thru the pipephil markings and the pipedia american pipemaker listings and nothing seems to be a match. Nothing on the stem, just that worn shank stamp. And the stem, to me, is very similar to old french pipes I own...thinner and more plasticky than quality vulcanite.

 

[pipesticks]

I might as well mention the middle pipe, the bear head. That was made by Briarwood Corp. in California. They are known for logging manzanite burls for pipes during WWII when briar shipments were cut off. They are also known for coming up with a steaming and cooking process that bound together wood dust in molds without the use of any glue or binder. I'm pretty sure that bear head is an example of that process, and it is unsmoked. It's actually my second one. I use my other one on occasion when tailgating for the Chicago Bears and people get a kick out of it

 

[pipesticks]

After looking over some pipecharts and pics from that era, I'm pretty convinced this Peper's pipe is a Kaywoodie. The VW on the stem still has me perplexed though.
NOPE: I'm wrong. It's a Grabow. I just tried swapping stems with some of my older pipes. Kaywoodie stems don't match at all but Grabow thread tenon is an exact match to the Peper Pipe.

 

[pipesticks]

Found this ad from 1948. The large pipe shown at the bottom of the ad is definitely the Peper's Pipe....same dimensions and style, 5.5" long with a 3" stummel.

Still not sure what shape that is but mystery solved except for the VW on the stem.

 

[mawnansmiff]

"During World War II, Manzanita root burls were used as an expedient native material to make smoking pipes due to its relation and similar fire-resistant properties to then-unavailable imported briar. Labelled as "Mission Briar", it was harvested for the remainder of the war, stopping soon after when supplies of imported briar once again became available."
Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Regards,
Jay.