The Worst British Pipes To Date?

[Kottan]

Hello Kottan,
I cannot answer your question. This has given me the opportunity to look through all my Frederick & Reuben Charatan pipes and later ones from 1964 onwards. I see from the 1951 catalogue that some of the pipes that are illustrated have no apostrophe although some do. I have a very rare smooth Countryman Selected here - probably one of the first made from the mid 1950s and this has an apostrophe and a dot but the dot is 'tall' nearly as tall as the apostrophe. I have an Underboar here with a dash between London and England. The 1965-66 brochure shows the pipes are stamped with apostrophe and dot. I think that they may have had a few stamps which were slightly different, some more worn than others. I know that when we worked at Upshall, Barry never 'threw a stamp away' the old ones were always kept in case...
I have also noticed that the Giant Billiard illlustrated in the 1951 Charatan Catalogue is actually a pipe from Reuben's father (pre 1910) because it is stamped London. Eng. .
You may find some other information here:

http://brbpipe.ru/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/T-shop_1-2011-12_56-69_3.pdf

Hello Ken,
I was in search of a Charatan grade 'Special S' (didn't find some info yet) but in the Russian article I accidentaly found that Roman Bobkov mentioned the 'missing dot' between 'London' and 'England' when he describes the second Lane era 1965 - 1976.
(Btw. Roman has a funny name for Herman Lane)

Page # 68
Google Translator
[ ...]

8. Disappearance of a point after the word “LONDON” in the standard stamp. It is impossible to specify the exact time, because in the Belvedere grade, say, the point disappeared before 1965, in Authentic, it seems, it was not originally, as in Perfection. In other grades, most likely, the point disappeared after the sale of the brand to Dunhill. Ivy Ryan believes that it was such an inconspicuous sabotage on the part of the Charatan carvers who had not yet quit their jobs. Perhaps, given the very noticeable drop in pipe quality after 1976.

Ground for intuition. Pipes of this period (especially the second half of the 70s) already require careful inspection before
purchasing. In the latest, there are such flaws in engineering, for which the master used to receive a hat, and the pipe, if nothing could be fixed, was sent to the oven. Still, the titanic leap into the market leader was not in vain. Seems to me, everyone was just tired. Not excluding Iron Herman.

 

[Kottan]

I will introduce to you one of my 'new' Charatans.
It came with a dottle still inside the bowl as can be seen in the seller's picture. (1st. pic below).
It's a freehand, looks like a long kind of Canadian with a forward canted bowl.
The follwing markings are all on the right side of the shank.
Charatan's Make over London.England over Special over S, FH near the stem with the CP- logo. (In the meantime I refreshed it with 'Crayola', many thanks @kenbarnes for this hint).

No Lane £ so probably the pipe was sold first in Europa though it now came from the US. The FH stamp was introduced in 1957 as far as I know, but when did Charatan use the S stamp on Special grades?. I'd assume this pipe was made between 1957 and the early 1960s. Please correct me if I'm totaly wrong.

 

[Kottan]

Sorry, of course I meant the left side of the shank but wrote 'right'.

 

[orlandofurioso]

Hello Kottan,

Congrats, she is very pretty.
I watched the auction ending

 

[Kottan]

Hello Kottan,

Congrats, she is very pretty.
I watched the auction ending

Thank you Orlando, did you bid on her too?
There are still several Charatan estates on my to do list.
I'll post them after refurbishing.

 

[orlandofurioso]

No, I did not .
Would love to see the refurbished pipes .

 

[Kottan]

No, I did not .
Would love to see the refurbished pipes .

I'll do my best ....and vice versa.
Where are all the Charatan lovers?

 

[orlandofurioso]

Still snoring ?

 

[mso489]

There may be more Charatan dating information here than in any other reference. Reprint this as a Charatan Dating 101 textbook by Ken and co-authors. It would take years to cull out this information piecemeal.

 

[Infantry23]

The Worst British Pipes To Date:

Were made in Sheffield in 1930. They were pot metal plated with low grade silver. They smoked hotter than a two dollar pistol, and the plate melted off parts of the stummel.

The airway did not meet the draft hole; there was a huge gap between the mortise and tenon; the draft was constricted; and somehow there was stain in the chamber. And even new, the shape was distorted, and the....

That's exactly how I understood the OP's title at first ?

 

[Kottan]

There may be more Charatan dating information here than in any other reference. Reprint this as a Charatan Dating 101 textbook by Ken and co-authors. It would take years to cull out this information piecemeal.

Exactly! When following this thread I had to correct many other informations I got from other sources. And got facts, which were mentioned nowhere before. Of course I made notes.

 

[Kottan]

Here is another Charatan that caught my eye because of its unsual shape and its nice grain. It's a Special - Extra Large (script font) MADE BY HAND (blockletters) - The CP-logo on the tapered stem is very faint. The shank has the encircled £-stamp. You can see the entire nomenclature in the pictures below. I think this pipe was made between mid and end 1965.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Now, that is something special! Good photos, too.

Enjoy!

 

[Kottan]

Thank you!

 

[kenbarnes]

I will introduce to you one of my 'new' Charatans.
It came with a dottle still inside the bowl as can be seen in the seller's picture. (1st. pic below).
It's a freehand, looks like a long kind of Canadian with a forward canted bowl.
The follwing markings are all on the right side of the shank.
Charatan's Make over London.England over Special over S, FH near the stem with the CP- logo. (In the meantime I refreshed it with 'Crayola', many thanks @kenbarnes for this hint).

No Lane £ so probably the pipe was sold first in Europa though it now came from the US. The FH stamp was introduced in 1957 as far as I know, but when did Charatan use the S stamp on Special grades?. I'd assume this pipe was made between 1957 and the early 1960s. Please correct me if I'm totaly wrong.View attachment 50553View attachment 50554View attachment 50555View attachment 50556

I got the impression that, originally, Herman Lane had an 'S' stamp die made in the U.S. so any decent looking pipe (a notch better than the grade) he would add an S under the grade and sell it for more money. I think this was originally applied to Supremes and then 100, 200 etc stamps were added. Originally, these were not grades from the Charatan factory they were 'add-ons' after they arrived in the U.S. and the pipes were re-selected. I can see that this S was not stamped at the same time as the original stamps and looks 'different'.

 

[Kottan]

I got the impression that, originally, Herman Lane had an 'S' stamp die made in the U.S. so any decent looking pipe (a notch better than the grade) he would add an S under the grade and sell it for more money. I think this was originally applied to Supremes and then 100, 200 etc stamps were added. Originally, these were not grades from the Charatan factory they were 'add-ons' after they arrived in the U.S. and the pipes were re-selected. I can see that this S was not stamped at the same time as the original stamps and looks 'different'.

Super! Thank you very much, Ken, for this info in the ' Charatan dating puzzle'.
That shows how Herman's marketing worked. Namly by upgrading (arbitrarily) the peer-reviewed qualities of the Charatan's factory. On the other hand he made Charatan a superior world famous brand.

 

[greeneyes]

This beautiful Charatan Zulu (60) sandblast arrived this morning and I set to work this evening after arriving home to clean it up, although it didn't require too much effort.

 

[Kottan]

Congrats greeneys,
the Zulu is one of my favourite Charatan's classic shapes.
You really got a very nice old sandblast from the Reuben-era (pre-Lane, before 1962), i think.The shape is pictured in the 1951 catalogue but I don't know when they discontinued the 'De Luxe' grade and stamping a grade on sandblasts.

Btw. Did the right and the left adress on the box belong to their shops in London at that time?

 

[greeneyes]

Congrats greeneys,
the Zulu is one of my favourite Charatan's classic shapes.
You really got a very nice old sandblast from the Reuben-era (pre-Lane, before 1962), i think.The shape is pictured in the 1951 catalogue but I don't know when they discontinued the 'De Luxe' grade and stamping a grade on sandblasts.

Btw. Did the right and the left adress on the box belong to their shops in London at that time?

Hi Kottan, thank you!
I also saw it in the '51 catalogue (thought not blasted) and therefore was hopeful to rely somewhat on its box and the De Luxe stamp for dating. I managed to search (and need to confirm) the date these addresses became active. Also it seems a bit odd to me that the right-most address was deliberately scratched out for some reason. Thanks for your insight and clues, which I'll dig into further!

 

[orlandofurioso]

Lovely pipe Greeneyes , congrats !
A sandblasted de luxe is not often seen.
Is the box original to the pipe ?
According to Tad Gage the de luxe grade was discontinued shortly after WW2 , I beg to differ.