Upshall Sizing Query.

[mawnansmiff]

On sunday last I won an auction for what was described as a "1990's full bent freehand size 6 grade P" pipe. What caught my eye was the diamond shank, I've never seen a pipe quite like it. It's an apple I think.
Well it arrived this morning and upon opening I got quite a shock...the thing is bloody huge!
I compared it to my other size 6 (a semi bent Rhodesian) and there are huge differences. Below are the figures for both:
Semi bent Rhodesian
Inner bowl diameter = 18.45mm
Inner bowl depth = 37.30mm
Overall height = 50.95mm
Stummel weight = 61.09g
Full bent apple
Inner bowl diameter = 22.71mm
Inner bowl depth = 43.98mm
Overall height = 58.96mm
Stummel weight = 69.15g
As can be seen, there are significant differences in the two supposedly same sized pipes. One thing however, the semi bent Rhodesian is stamped with a '6' whereas the full bent is only stamped 'P' followed by James Upshall followed by FH, there is no size number which leads me to believe Karen (the seller) took a wild stab at the size. It is more like an extra large pipe to my eye. I swear you could knock someone out with it!
So how did Upshall go about sizing their pipes? I've looked at the sizing and grading pages but found nothing useful.
I will likely keep it as it's so unusual (to me) and has some gorgeous straight grain to the sides and shank with bird's eye to the front of the bowl but shall stick to 3/4 tobacco fills. I'm smoking it now with some FVF and it smokes great...I just wish it was smaller :|
Regards,
Jay.

 

[kenbarnes]

Hi Jay.

Charatan and Dunhill always had their machine-turned catalogue shapes in sizes and the larger the pipe the higher the price. When Barry and I started James Upshall (The Tilshead Pipe Co. Ltd), in 1978, Barry still wanted to put James Upshall pipes into sizes and price them accordingly. As we manufactured only handmade pipes - no catalogue shapes, I thought, with my purist hat on, that handmade pipes are handmade and to keep it more simple with regards to pricing them, grouping them at the selection stage and stamping them and so on, it was more practical if I sold the Extra large ones at one price to the U.S. (who wanted them BIG in those days), the medium ones to Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Holland etc and the smaller ones to Japan and so forth.

My experiences tell me that larger pipes, in general, do not always show the best grain whereas medium ones are cut more and the grain seems to get tighter the further I cut into the plateau blocks.

Obviously there are rare pieces that are extra large and have super grain and if the tobacco holes are left natural, the grain on the inside of the bowl can be even more striking.

When I left the company in 1989, Barry introduced his preference of sizing each piece. This, at the time, may have given him some flexibility on pricing the pipes higher, which is always important if the company is to survive.

I hope this helps.

 

[kenbarnes]

....the Bulldog and Rhodesian shapes always seemed to be placed in a larger size because they were cut from larger blocks on machine-turned catalogue shapes due to their width (size of block was R 2 3/4) if my memory serves me well - which cost more - as there were less blocks in a bag for this size.

 

[mawnansmiff]

Thanks for the detailed reply Ken. I have since seen another pipe from the same seller (you know who :wink: ) that is advertised as being extra large yet still has dimensions smaller than my so called size 6 pipe.
Also you have helped date my pipe to being made pre 1989!
Regards,
Jay.