It’s 2016! May it be a great year for all of you and yours. I thought I’d start the year off right with a restoration that gives many new years to a classic Canadian-made pipe.

This restoration was easily one of the most ambitious and challenging pipe refurbishments I have undertaken to date. A fellow member of the Brothers of Briar pipe forum contacted me before the Holidays asking for help with a Brigham pipe bowl he had found in a local antique shop. He had just the stummel, no stem, but the bowl was stamped “Brigham” over “Made in Canada” on the left shank and “613” on the bottom shank. He had stumbled across a rather rare find – a 6-Dot Brigham Straight Grain carved in Toronto before Brigham moved production to Italy. The “Made in Canada” stamp places the pipe somewhere in the earlier post-Patent Era (from 1955…