I've been researching a lot about the history of Dunhill, but the information is fuzzy, therefore, unreliable.
In several places, the fifth digit was not a pacified thing. I decided to clarify all my doubts about the nomenclatures of the brand with someone who is the director of the production of pipes. Many of this information should already be known, but... So, let's see what Mr. Hener said:
"The original skus/model numbers from the 1920’s until the early 1970’s stood for very specific shapes and bowls. For example, the codes 31, 34, 59, 111, 113, 117, 196, LB, LBS, … were all different types of Billiard shaped pipes and there were about 50 (!) such codes for the Billiard shape alone.
Around 1973, with the introduction of computers, new categorisations were introduced that actually had a meaning in terms of size, mouthpiece and shape.
A 3-digit system (“Interim”) was developed that showed a first logical approach to identify pipes in terms of size, mouthpiece and shape, with the 1st digit being the size, the 2nd digit the mouthpiece and the 3rd digit the shape, i.e. the old “85” became a “321” which was a group 3 Apple with taper mouthpiece.
This was soon to be replaced by a more detailed, formal 4- and 5-digit system around 1978.
The 5th digit indicated the style of the bowl within the group of a similar classification, each identified by a last digit which could be any number between 1-9.
While e.g. within the Gp.4 Billiard there were 5 different styles of bowls (5th digit being either 1,2,3,4, or 9), for a Gp.1 Billiard there were only 3 styles used (5th digit being 1, 2, or 9).
Although the 5-digit code was stamped on the pipe and thus was visible to the consumer, it was mostly of relevance for internal production planning purposes and, to a lesser extent, our retail staff, but proved to be quite complex.
The elimination of the 5th digit on the pipes (probably in the early 80’s) resulted in better management of our pipe stock as there were less skus and it also facilitated the work for our sales staff in the retail shops as the complexity and number of skus were considerably reduced.
The current system with 4 digits visible is now in place for over 30 years and has proven to work very well for us, the trade and consumers."
That's it.
I hope it's useful information as it was for me.
In several places, the fifth digit was not a pacified thing. I decided to clarify all my doubts about the nomenclatures of the brand with someone who is the director of the production of pipes. Many of this information should already be known, but... So, let's see what Mr. Hener said:
"The original skus/model numbers from the 1920’s until the early 1970’s stood for very specific shapes and bowls. For example, the codes 31, 34, 59, 111, 113, 117, 196, LB, LBS, … were all different types of Billiard shaped pipes and there were about 50 (!) such codes for the Billiard shape alone.
Around 1973, with the introduction of computers, new categorisations were introduced that actually had a meaning in terms of size, mouthpiece and shape.
A 3-digit system (“Interim”) was developed that showed a first logical approach to identify pipes in terms of size, mouthpiece and shape, with the 1st digit being the size, the 2nd digit the mouthpiece and the 3rd digit the shape, i.e. the old “85” became a “321” which was a group 3 Apple with taper mouthpiece.
This was soon to be replaced by a more detailed, formal 4- and 5-digit system around 1978.
The 5th digit indicated the style of the bowl within the group of a similar classification, each identified by a last digit which could be any number between 1-9.
While e.g. within the Gp.4 Billiard there were 5 different styles of bowls (5th digit being either 1,2,3,4, or 9), for a Gp.1 Billiard there were only 3 styles used (5th digit being 1, 2, or 9).
Although the 5-digit code was stamped on the pipe and thus was visible to the consumer, it was mostly of relevance for internal production planning purposes and, to a lesser extent, our retail staff, but proved to be quite complex.
The elimination of the 5th digit on the pipes (probably in the early 80’s) resulted in better management of our pipe stock as there were less skus and it also facilitated the work for our sales staff in the retail shops as the complexity and number of skus were considerably reduced.
The current system with 4 digits visible is now in place for over 30 years and has proven to work very well for us, the trade and consumers."
That's it.
I hope it's useful information as it was for me.
