Pipe Maker Brand

[Briar Lee]

I own maybe a dozen or more Pipe Maker brand pipes. They have stems that will interchange with a Lee Star Grade, use the same screw tenon but with a cheaper Kaywoodie type mortise, and instead of gold inlaid 5 or 7 pointed stars have a simple Dunhill type bulls eye circular hole trade mark, that some fall out. Construction, finish, boring, and overall quality are as good as an American factory pipe gets, in other words, Lee quality.

A Pipe Maker sometimes has the same quality briar as a Lee, the same stain, and often even are made to the same shape, apparently. Stingers interchange with a Lee.

With the generic name Pipe Maker, it’s a cinch they were a discount pipe. Usually they’ll have plainish briar, not always.

A new old stock Pipe Maker even tastes like a Lee, which is to say if they aren’t oil cured they taste sweet like they were oil cured.

I used to think they were a Lee sub brand like Gold Coast, but the literature says they were made by another pipe maker.

If so, a Pipe Maker is a really good gold starless counterfeit Lee.

 

[telescopes]

I have several Pipe Maker pipes. I disagree on quality. They are more in line with a drug store Grabow from my experience. The briar on mine are less dense and the stem is a much cheaper material.

 

[badbeard]

I have two basically identical "Pipe Maker" pipes. They are both great smokers. The stems are both nice vulcanite. On par with the vintage threaded tenon unfiltered Grabows(which I also love). I do wish they had the Ajustomatic tenon though, as I had to fix the "clock" on both of them when I got them.

 

[Briar Lee]

I have several Pipe Maker pipes. I disagree on quality. They are more in line with a drug store Grabow from my experience. The briar on mine are less dense and the stem is a much cheaper material.

I agree with a cheaper grade of vulcanite, although it’s Briarlee quality.

 

[didimauw]

You should really do something about that oxidation!

 

[mso489]

What's a thumbnail on the history of Lee and Pipe Maker brands? Were they especially popular in Missouri? Where were they made? I confess both brands are entirely new to me. I guess I'm not much of a pipe historian, though I thought I knew a bit. A few lines on each would suffice, just to set it in my mind.

Dr. Grabow, which started in Chicago and moved to Sparta, N.C., and MM cobs located in Washington, Mo., just outside St. Louis, are old familiars to me, and I know a bit of history on Kaywoodie and Edwards and its sub-brand Benton.

 

[didimauw]

@Briar Lee and @Parsimonious Piper need to get on the Lee pipephil page and add to it!

 

[Briar Lee]

You should really do something about that oxidation!

I have about hundred of them.

The cheaper Pipe Maker and Briarlee vulcanite is shiner, harder, more resistant to oxidation. It’s only a slight difference.

And not all Pipe Makers have a Lee tenon and Briarlee Kaywoodie type mortise either.

Some Pipe Maker production is push stem.

 

[Parsimonious Piper]

@Briar Lee and @Parsimonious Piper need to get on the Lee pipephil page and add to it!

Just got an account approved for pipedia. I have very little documentation but lots of examples.