The seconds brands are stummels that didn't pass inspection. Finishing and especially stem work on these rejects is not of Dunhill quality. Parkers and Savorys are decent pipes and great for the price, but don't fool yourself into thinking they're Dunhills without the Dunhill stamp, because they just aren't.
Exactly this.
The whole relationship is overhyped and overblown imho
It's tiresome to see them so often described as "made by Dunhill" and the higher asking prices to accompany that descriptor.
If there is a true "2nd", it would be Parker, mostly because of the shared stamping and Parker was the only one to get the proper stain (on blasts) instead of the "shoe polish" black --- but in most cases, and most certainly on post-1967 pipes, the quality was well below a Dunhill proper, most especially the excellent stemwork which I'd reckon accounts for a large portion of the price on a Dunhill proper.
I still love Parker and Savory's though, they are a good bargain in most cases.
Interesting you use the word 'reject' because essentially, this is what they are, and the term that was stamped by many other British companies on substandard pipes, but it was the genius of Alfred Dunhill who recognized very early on that such terminology had a negative effect and perception on the main brand --- perhaps even Dunhill can also be credited with the initial notion in the first place, of inventing the "2nds" line?
This bit from John Loring is highly interesting where he talks of a 1921 Dunhill Damaged reject, and how shortly thereafter in 1922, Alfred formed the Parker Pipe Co. to market all his fallings, and thus not tarnish the brightness of the Dunhill halo...
"I was just getting into early Dunhills, learning about them and how to date them when Judd dangled these pipes before me over lunch. It was obvious from the start that the lightly smoked 1921 shape 31 billiard was an interesting pipe, even if too small for anything other then an occasional ‘test’ smoke. For with full and complete standard Dunhill stampings on either side of the shank, the pipe is further stamped on the bottom of the shank “DAMAGED / PRICE 3’/6’” (roughly a 75% discount to the then retail).
While there have been occasions in later years when Dunhill has stamped pipes to indicate reduced pricing, at least until the late 1970’s this was always for pipes that fully met Dunhill quality standards. So what makes this pipe unusual is that apparently it is not up to Dunhill quality standards but still intentionally bears full Dunhill nomenclature. I have never seen or heard of another but as I think about it I suspect that a fair number of pipes from 1921 with that stamping originally existed even if few have survived.
More such “DAMAGED” stamped pipes must have existed because in 1920 Dunhill began both carving and finishing all its bowls in London rather then purchasing most all already carved and graded in France and only finished in London. Carving bowls from scratch necessarily meant that Dunhill ended up a good number of usable bowls that didn’t meet Dunhill quality standards – in Dunhill terminology “fallings”. In 1922 it would form Parker to market these imperfect pipes thus preserving the “Dunhill” name, but in the interim, as attested to by my pipe, it appears that they marketed these “fallings” under the Dunhill name marked “DAMAGED”. In a very real sense then my pipe could be considered a “Parker” prototype."
Also,
Mike Reschke has added that to the best of his knowledge,
Parkers were never oil-cured.
