A most excellent find,
congrats!
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The old Ripples rarely pop up and finding one is always cause for celebration!
I have a BBB version which is hands down one of the best smoking pipes that I own,
I absolutely love the early Hesson design!
There was a relationship between WDC and BBB, but exact details are murky,
Buroak posted this old ad a while back which illustrates that there was definitely something going on...
The old BBB was found for $10 too!
We shouldn't be writing about these fine pipes because they seem to fly under the radar!
The blast quality on these old Ripples is absolutely magnificent.
I found an unsmoked WDC example, but paid much more than $10 for it,
yet I couldn't resist,
complete with original box and insurance paper!
These old Ripples are fairly scarce.
William Wallace Hesson had a few pipe related patents:
1918
http://www.google.com/patents/US1455396
1920
http://www.google.com/patents/US1464359
1925
http://www.google.com/patents/US1566866
1930
http://rebornpipes.com/tag/wdc-milano-hesson-guard-pipes/
1938
http://www.google.com/patents/US2188751
Here are a few old ads:
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1931