Won A 1940s Dr. Grabow: Before and After

[numbersix]

I won this Dr. Grabow for $20. As far as I can determine, this pipe dates to the mid-40s to the early 50s. The pipe came to me in pretty good condition considering it's 60-70 years old. Just took a little elbow grease. The bowl had only a small amount of cake. No other damage to the pipe can be seen except for some dings on the top rim.
I will say, this pipe is world's ahead of my 1970s Dr. Grabow Royal Duke in terms of quality.
Stampings:

Dr. Grabow Tru-Grain

6026 Imported Bruyere

Pre-Smoked

Reg. US. Pat. Off.

Pat. No. 1896800
Here's what I found on a Dr Grabow forum (EJames: if you see this, I would greatly appreicate your opinion on whether or not the info below is accurate):
History:
Produced by Dr. Grabow Pipe Co., Inc. (1944 - 1953) These Dr. Grabows display no stamp of Linkman’s on the shank, narrow threads with faster twist, white spade emblem on top of stem points to smoker, 4-digit no. and new 1-hole cleaner. Described as Imported Bruyere, and often stamped "Pre-Smoked". Includes 6000 and 6200 TRU-GRAIN, 8400 SELECT, 9400 SUPREME, and 9800 DELUXE.
Before:

After:

 

[mp31guitar]

Very nice. I'd like to have that one myself.

 

[ghost]

Nice one Six!

 

[andypandy]

Very well done. A great pipe.

 

[numbersix]

Thanks guys - much appreciated. Just finished a very nice smoke - very clean and sweet. All it took was some reaming, salt and alcohol treatment and oxyclean the stem. Then a good overall cleaning and polishing.

 

[petes03]

Nice pipe and good job on the clean-up!

 

[bullbriar]

Nice job on the restoration! I like the pipe stand as well.

 

[papipeguy]

Nicely done, six. Very classic and classy shape.

 

[allan]

Good for you, Six.
It looks like new and I'm gad it smokes well.

 

[mp31guitar]

Six, is that a vulcanite stem or plastic like grabows come with today?

 

[ssjones]

Those old Grabows are very nice vulcanite, that one is sharp! Hopefully ejames can help confirm the dating, but sounds logical to me.

 

[mp31guitar]

Thanks Al. It looked like vulcanite. I wish they still made stems with it.

 

[uberam3rica]

Quite the turn around,, great job!

 

[numbersix]

Thanks guys!

Nice job on the restoration! I like the pipe stand as well.

Thanks BB - I got that pipe ashtray off ebay too. Love that thing!

Six, is that a vulcanite stem or plastic like grabows come with today?

It's vulcanite, and like Al says, it's very high quality vulcanite. And it was not badly oxidized for a pipe that old.
BTW, even my 70's Grabow has a vulcanite stem too. I think plastic came out in the '80s.

 

[colorduke]

Very nice work,enjoy.

 

[brian64]

Wow...very nice for $20...and for a Grabow. Apparently they don’t make ‘em like they used to...as with so many other things. Beautiful clean up job.

I think plastic came out in the '80s.

That could be a metaphor for many things.

 

[rigmedic1]

That's an excellent job on that pipe. It looks better than new. Those old Grabows are a great investment.

 

[lostandfound]

Very nice.

 

[numbersix]

Thanks a lot everyone - much appreciated!
Just for kicks, I Googled the patent number and discovered this - amazing what you can find on the Internet:
http://www.google.com/patents?id=-EVHAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA1&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=1#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

[ejames]

Sounds like you got the dating right to me,especially if you got your info from RJ McKay's website.Him and D.R. Bridges have done a lot of research on the early Grabows. Linkman stamped that patent number on their pipes for many years,even though the mechanism went through several changes. If you notice in the drawing the shank is threaded. There is no threaded aluminum fitting in the shank. Pipes made like that are very rare.

The Tru-Grains are not as common as the Deluxe etc.You got a nice one!