Sasieni Date / Patent Clarification

[ssjones]

I only have two Sasieni catalogs - 1936 and 1950. Neither shows the Ruff-Root.
I've owned a dozen Ruff-Root pipes, none had the Patent number.
So, I'd say that is a pretty rare Sasieni.

I believe this is the pipe in question. I've never seen a Sasieni Patent number pipe with the number on the stem.
Very curious? As Hair requested, I'd love to see other examples.

 

[bayareabriar]

I only have two Sasieni catalogs - 1936 and 1950. Neither shows the Ruff-Root.
I've owned a dozen Ruff-Root pipes, none had the Patent number.
So, I'd say that is a pretty rare Sasieni.

I believe this is the pipe in question. I've never seen a Sasieni Patent number pipe with the number on the stem.
Very curious? As Hair requested, I'd love to see other examples.

View attachment 403777

Yeah that’s the one. It’s also the reason I didn’t clean the stem up as I didn’t want to take away from any stampings. I know some folks don’t clean that area of the stem to show its originality for dunhill stamping, Barling, and even the CP on Charatan. I’ve never seen a ruff root that early either, but given the craggy deep grain, size and color of the dots, and the dead ringer patent number, its era correct.
Still a pretty good pipe. I usually see ruff root pipes go from $145-225. So the extra money on it was for the shape/grain/patent number/earliest known example in my opinion. Probably would have went for another $100 if it had the stinger.

 

[sablebrush52]

Anomalies abound with vintage pipes, which is part of the fun. I have several such, two of which come to mind, a WW2 era Barling sandblast with a 1950’s - 1960’s stem on it, and a 1920’s Sasieni bowl with a sterling fitment hallmarked for 1941.
Many pipes have a replacement stem and it’s quite possible that some repairman with a boxful of orphaned stems found one that was fitted to the stummel. Replacement stems are not as rare as people think.

 

[ssjones]

Anomalies abound with vintage pipes, which is part of the fun. I have several such, two of which come to mind, a WW2 era Barling sandblast with a 1950’s - 1960’s stem on it, and a 1920’s Sasieni bowl with a sterling fitment hallmarked for 1941.
Many pipes have a replacement stem and it’s quite possible that some repairman with a boxful of orphaned stems found one that was fitted to the stummel. Replacement stems are not as rare as people think.

In the 50's to 70's, its likely every tobacco shop had their own "repairman" they all weren't George D. I don't think many thought of these brands as collectibles yet, but just a tobacco ingestion tool. If you only made $10k annually, you still bought 5-6 Medico's or the like every year. Relative to the upper middle class, a $20 pipe probably had a similar short life expectancy?

 

[sablebrush52]

In the 50's to 70's, its likely every tobacco shop had their own "repairman" they all weren't George D. I don't think many thought of these brands as collectibles yet, but just a tobacco ingestion tool. If you only made $10k annually, you still bought 5-6 Medico's or the like every year. Relative to the upper middle class, a $20 pipe probably had a similar short life expectancy?

Absolutely correct. The collectible “estate” market didn’t really start to take off until the 70’s.
Also, companies like Barling, Comoys, and Dunhill had their own in-house repair departments for their customers. A big part of that was cleaning and stem replacement.

 

[Stonemonk]

I only have two Sasieni catalogs - 1936 and 1950. Neither shows the Ruff-Root.
I've owned a dozen Ruff-Root pipes, none had the Patent number.
So, I'd say that is a pretty rare Sasieni.

I believe this is the pipe in question. I've never seen a Sasieni Patent number pipe with the number on the stem.
Very curious? As Hair requested, I'd love to see other examples.

View attachment 403777

 

[Stonemonk]

Thanks to all of you for this interesting discussion. I think that Bayarea's pipe has to be an anomaly made, as some of you have suggested, by fitting a post-1960 Smallgate bowl to a pre-1947 patent no 150221/2 stem from an original Smallgate bowl. Probably, as some of you suggest, it was done for the express purpose of making a smokable pipe and not for collecting purposes. The Smallgate shape or style can first be found in the 1935 London House catalog, and it is still present in the circa 1960 catalog after the "Ruff-Root" finish was patented. It's style/shape no. 72. That catalog is included in the Pipedia article and the Smallgate style is on p. 13.

 

[bayareabriar]

Thanks to all of you for this interesting discussion. I think that Bayarea's pipe has to be an anomaly made, as some of you have suggested, by fitting a post-1960 Smallgate bowl to a pre-1947 patent no 150221/2 stem from an original Smallgate bowl. Probably, as some of you suggest, it was done for the express purpose of making a smokable pipe and not for collecting purposes. The Smallgate shape or style can first be found in the 1935 London House catalog, and it is still present in the circa 1960 catalog after the "Ruff-Root" finish was patented. It's style/shape no. 72. That catalog is included in the Pipedia article and the Smallgate style is on p. 13.

I appreciate the research on it. The stem just fits too well at the flat bottom stem to shank transition. and if they had to make it fit, I would think the stamping on the stem would be gone. Having handled thousands of pipes, I just don’t think this is a replacement stem. I get it if you think so though and I understand the 1960 dating with the information available, and learned new information on the small gate marking. So, thank you !

 

[Stonemonk]

Hello Pipe Brothers,

I am working on the history of Sasieni's, and I have quite a few sources of information from some of you, for which I am very grateful. But I haven't really asked all of you for help. I have a pretty good range of catalogs and pamphlets from 1923-1965, and I have the 1981/82 Post-Family catalog that ye.old.briars had and from which the Sasieni shape chart with the blue-tinted background on Pipedia, but without a date. Based on the distributor Rizla's dates of ownership, Jon Guss has dated that catalog pretty precisely to 1981 +/- 1.
What I'm missing, however, is a catalog from between 1965 (the date of the Al Jones catalogue posted accurately on Pipedia as a 1965 catalog) and this 1981 catalog. This 1981 catalog contains eight completely new shapes and numbers (not seen in previous catalogs), 10 numbers from previous catalogs repurposed for a new style/shape, and 16 that retain their shape and name from the older catalogs. What I cannot tell if these fairly significant changes were done by the South African group that bought the company in 1979 from the Sasieni family, but then sold it in 1986 to James Russell Inc. Or if they were done as possibly a last gasp attempt by the last of the Sasienis interested in pipes to make the shapes more relevant in the markets of that era. So while I have a few price lists from this era, they are not very specific about the actual styles (=shapes) being made at that time. Does any of you out there in Pipesmagazine land have this "missing link" catalog? Many thanks in advance for your assistance with this search.
Thank you.