Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the table is a unique one and I think it is an older one. We purchased it from our contact in Copenhagen, Denmark 02/11/24. The pipe is a Shell Briar with a rugged sandblast finish. The pipe is stamped on the heel of the bowl and the underside of the shank on a smooth panel. On the heel it is stamped with the shape number 4110 followed by Dunhill in an oval.  Next to that it is stamped Shell Briar [over] Made in England 30. The 30 is the date stamp. The pipe had been smoked and there was a light cake in the bowl with no lava overflow in the sandblast on the rim top. The stem is lightly oxidized and had light tooth marks on both the top and underside of the stem just ahead of the button. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his clean up work. I have included them below. Jeff took photos of the rim top, bowl and the surfaces of the stem to give a sense of the condition of the pipe. The walls of the bowl had a light cake on them. The stem is lightly oxidized and has tooth marks on both sides ahead of the button. He took photos of the sides and heel of the bowl to give a clear picture of the depth of the sandblast. It really is a great looking blast that shows the grain underneath very well.  He took photos of the stamping on the underside of the bowl and the shank. It is clear and readable and read as noted above. I turned to the dating key on Pipephil’s site (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1a.html) to establish a date for the pipe. I drew a red box around the pertinent information below. It fits the criteria of a Sandblast with a year suffix and a Non possessive form Dunhill. The suffix is the number 30 which puts in the section below which notes 1960 + suffix to establish a date. In this case it is 1960 +30 making the pipe a 1990.From there I turned to the Dunhill shape chart to unpack the shape number stamp 4110 on the heel of the bowl (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/shapes.html). This gave me the information I needed to interpret the 4110 shape stamp. The first digit 4 is the size of the pipe – a Group 4. The second digit is the style of the stem which in this case is a 1 telling me that the stem is a tapered stem. The last two digits the 10 tell me that the pipe is a Liverpool. I have included the shape below and encircled it with a red box.Now it was my turn to work on the pipe. Jeff had done an amazing cleanup of the pipe. He reamed the light cake with a PipNet reamer and cleaned up that with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed the internals of the bowl and stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the externals with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and rinsed the bowl off with running water. He soaked the stem in Briarville’s Pipe stem Deoxidizer and once it had soaked rinsed it off with warm water to remove the residual solution. He dried it off and rubbed it down to remove any oxidation that was still on the stem. The pipe looked very good when I received it. I took photos of the bowl and the rim top as well as both sides of the stem to show the condition of the pipe before I started my work. It really looked remarkably good.I took a photo of the stamping on the shank. The photo of the stamping is clear and readable. I also removed the stem and took a photo of the parts of the pipe. It is a unique piece of pipe history.The bowl was in such good condition that I had to do some minimal work with it. I rubbed the briar down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the briar with my fingertips and a horsehair shoe brush to work it into the nooks and crannies of the sandblast finish. The product works to clean, enliven and preserve the briar. I let it sit for 10 minutes then I buffed it with a cotton cloth to deepen the shine. The briar really comes alive with the balm. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I sanded the surface of the stem smooth with 320-3500 grit sanding pads. It worked well to smooth things out and remove remnants of oxidation. When finished the stem looked much better.I polished the vulcanite with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I used Before & After Pipe Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine to further polish the stem. This 1990 Dunhill Shell Briar 4110 Liverpool has a beautiful, unique Dunhill Sandblast finish that is very deep and craggy. The rich brown/black finish highlights some great grain around the bowl and shank. It has some great rugged sandblast that Dunhill developed and specialized in making. The polished vulcanite taper stem adds to the mix. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. It is critical to avoid buffing the stamping and to have a lighter touch on the sandblast briar. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel and followed that by buffing it with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Dunhill Shell Briar Liverpool is quite stunning and feels great in my hand. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.41 ounces/40 grams. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe. I am going to add it to the rebornpipes store in the British Pipemakers Section. If you would like to add it to your collection let me know. Thanks for your time.