Daily Archives: April 22, 2025

Breathing New Life into Dunhill Shell Briar RF F/T Pot

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by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the table is one that we picked up from our contact in Copenhagen, Denmark on 08/09/2024. The Shell Briar Sandblast finish on this English made Pot shaped pipe and the white spot on the topside of the taper vulcanite stem are what caught our eye. It is stamped on the heel of the bowl and shank and reads RF followed by F/T followed by Dunhill [over] Shell Briar. That is followed by Made in [over] England with an underlined superscript 11 after the D. A circle 4 S is at the end of the stamping. It has a classic Shell Briar mixed brown/oxblood/black stain on the sandblast finish that is a stark contrast to the black vulcanite taper stem. It has a lot of grime and dirt in the sandblast finish on the bowl and straight shank Pot. The bowl was heavily caked around the top third of the bowl and the inner edge and the top were covered with a light lava coat in the sandblast. The vulcanite stem was heavily oxidized and had tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. The white spot logo on the topside of the taper stem looks to be in good condition. Jeff took some photos of the pipe to show the general condition of the pipe before he started his clean up. He took some photos of the rim top and bowl from various angles to give me a clear picture of the condition of the rim top and bowl. The inside of the bowl is heavily caked around the top 1/3 of the bowl and there was lava on the inner edge and in the sandblast on the rim top. He included photos that show the top and underside of the stem. It is as described above. Jeff took some photos of the sides and heel of the bowl to show the condition of the rusticated finish on the pipe. The photos showed some great grain around the bowl and shank even with the grime in the finish. It is a great looking piece of briar. He took a photo of the stamping on the heel of the bowl and the underside of the shank. It was clear and readable as noted above. I wanted to unpack the Dunhill stamping on the shank and work to understand each element of the stamp. I generally use the Pipephil site to gather as much initial information as possible (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/shell-briar1.html). The stamping is interpreted as follows: The shape is defined as RF is the shape reference for a taper stem Pot. The F/T is the designation for a Fish Tail stem. The Shell Briar stamp refers to the finish. The underlined, superscript number 11 following the D of England would give the date the pipe. The circle 4S tells me that the pipe is a group 4 sized pipe and the S is for the Shell finish. The photo below shows a pipe with similar stamping to the one I am working on. It is the same date stamp so I think the one I have is also a 1971 pipe. I will verity that.Pipephil also has some helpful dating keys on the site that are basically flow charts that you can walk through to date your pipe (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1.html). I turned to Part 1 of the Dating Key and followed the chart. This pipe has 16 following the D in England. There was no patent number so that took me to the section on the chart below (column one) which instructed me that the pipe could be dated as being made “posterior to 1954”.I followed the link under “Your pipe is posterior to 1954. Narrow down your dating”. That took me to Page 2 of the dating key (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1a.html). The second column – suffix [1…4] or [11…39] led me to the next section. Since the 11 after the D in England the date of the pipe spelled as 1960 + 11 making the date 1971.I then turned to Pipedia’s section on Dunhill Shell Briar to get a bit of background on the Dunhill finishes (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill#Root_Briar). I quote:

Shell

A deep craggy sandblast with a black stain finish (usually made using Algerian briar) – the color of the stain used has varied over the years. Although there is some doubt as to them being the first to sandblast pipes, Dunhill’s Shell pipes, and the sandblasting techniques developed to create them are considered one of Dunhill’s greatest and most lasting contributions to the art of pipe making.

The documented history of Dunhill’s inception of the Shell is largely limited to patent applications — there are no catalog pages or advertisements promoting blasted pipes at the time. The preliminary work on the English patent (No. 1484/17) was submitted on October 13, 1917. The patent submission was completed half a year later, on April 12, 1918, followed by the granting of the English patent on October 14, 1918. This was less than a month before the end of The Great War on November 11th.

In 1986 Dunhill released a line of premium Shell finish pipes – “RING GRAIN”. These are high-quality straight grain pipes which are sandblasted. Initially only Ring Grain, but now in two different finishes. In 1995 the “Shilling” was introduced with Cumberland finish – it is an extremely rare series. These pipes exhibit a deeper blast characteristic of that of the 1930’s – mid-1960’s (and the limited ‘deep blast’ pipes of the early 1980s) and show a fine graining pattern. These are considered the best new Dunhills by many enthusiasts today and are very rare. The finish is sometimes described as tasting like vanilla at first, with the taste becoming more normal or good as the pipe breaks in.

I turned to work on the pipe itself. Jeff had done an amazing cleanup of the pipe. He reamed the 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, pipe cleaners and shank brushes. He scrubbed the externals with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and rinsed the bowl off with running water. His scrubbing removed the varnish on the bowl with just a few spots remaining. 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 soak did not penetrate the varnish on the stem at all but it certainly looked better. Other than the shiny spots in the finish where the varnish remained, the pipe looked very good when I received it. You can also see the sunken state of the white spot on the stem surface. I took close up photos of the bowl, rim top and stem to show how clean the pipe was. The bowl was clean and the rim top and the inner edge look good. The stem was clean and the tooth marks and chatter though not visible in the photos are still present.I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. It is very clear and readable and read as noted above. I also removed the stem from the shank and took photos of the pipe to show the look of the parts.The exterior of the bowl was beautiful. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the briar with my finger tips and a shoe brush. I let it sit on the bowl for 10 minutes and then buffed it off with a paper towel and soft cloth. The product is a great addition to the restoration work. It enlivens, enriches and protects the briar while giving it a deep glow. It is a product I use on every pipe I restore. I set the bowl aside and turned to the stem. I sanded the it with 320-3500 grit sanding pads and wiped the stem down after each pad with some Obsidian Oil on a cloth. The shine is coming back beautifully.I polished it with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiping the surface down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. It is really shining. I polished it further with Before & After Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I gave it another coat of Obsidian Oil to finish this step. This 1971 Dunhill Shell Briar RF F/T Pot with a vulcanite taper stem has a beautiful, unique Dunhill Sandblast finish that highlights the grain. The Shell Briar mixed brown finish highlights some great grain around the bowl and shank. The polished vulcanite taper stem adds to the mix. I put the stem back on the bowl and buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel being careful to not buff the stamping. I gave the bowl 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 RF F/T Pot is quite nice and feels great in the hand. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 inches, Height: 1 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.31ounces/37 grams. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over another beautiful pipe. This one will be going on the rebornpipes store in the British Pipe Makers Section. Thanks for your time.

New Life for a Castello Sea Rock Briar KK32 Canadian

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by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the table is one that we picked up in the lot from an eBay seller in Harrison Township, Michigan, USA on 08/22/2024. The Sea Rock Rusticated finish on this Italian made Canadian shaped pipe and the faux diamond inset on the left side of the oval taper stem are what caught our eye. It is stamped on the heel of the bowl and reads Castello [over] Sea Rock Briar. That is followed by KK 32 and to the right it reads Made in Cantu [over] Italy. That is followed Carlo Sciotti in an oval next to the stem/shank junction. It has a classic Reddish Black stain on the rusticated finish that is a stark contrast to the black acrylic taper stem. It has a deep rusticated finish on a straight oval, long shank Pot. The bowl was heavily caked and the inner edge and the top were covered with a thick lava coat in the rustication. The acrylic stem was dirty and had tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. The faux diamond logo on the left side of the taper stem looks to be in good condition. Jeff took some photos of the pipe to show the general condition of the pipe before he started his clean up. He took some photos of the rim top and bowl from various angles to give me a clear picture of the condition of the rim top and bowl. The inside of the bowl is heavily caked with lava on the inner edge and in the sandblast on the rim top. He included photos that show the top and underside of the stem. It is as described above. Jeff took some photos of the sides and heel of the bowl to show the condition of the rusticated finish on the pipe. The photos showed some great grain around the bowl and shank even with the grime in the finish. It is a great looking piece of briar. He took a photo of the stamping on the heel of the bowl and the underside of the shank. It was clear and readable as noted above. As usual I cannot seem to retain the details on Castello pipes in my head for long for some reason. The stamping on this one – Castello and the Carlo Scotti stamp left me with some questions that I need to answer before I began to work on the pipe. I turned first to the Pipephil site (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-castello.html) because of the general quick summary of information I get there. I quote:

Castello PIPA CASTELLO di Carlo Scotti & C. was founded in 1947 by Carlo Scotti († 1988). Franco Coppo (AKA “Kino”) who married Carlo Scotti’s daughter Savina, manages (2012) the corporate since 1985.

The site also gave a good summary of the grading and sizes of the pipes. I quote that in full.

Sizes (ascending):

1K to 4K, G (Giant) and GG (Extra large)

Rusticated grading: SEA ROCK, OLD SEA ROCK, NATURAL VERGIN,

Sandblasted grading: ANTIQUARI, OLD ANTIQUARI

Smooth grading (ascending): TRADEMARK, CASTELLO, COLLECTION

Other stampings: Great Line (Non-standard or freestyle) Fiammata (Straight grain)

Production (2012): ~4000 pipes / year

I also found a note on the page that the Rhinestone logo was originally on pipes for the US market. It is occasionally used now.

I turned then to Pipedia for more information on the brand (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Castello). The majority of the information was what was already quoted above in abbreviated form. However there was a link to an article by Bob Hamlin that gave some interesting bits of information that I found helpful (http://www.pipes.org/BURST/FORMATTED/196.016.html). I quote in part from that article.

SEA ROCK [Carved Black or dark brown]:  This is the lowest grade of the Castello line and is the most common in the USA.  Sea Rocks are produced by taking a smooth bowl that has not been “final finished” and surface carving the finish with tools. This “carved” finish is then evened out using a steel wire brush, stained and then waxed. The Natural Vergin carved finish is left unstained and unwaxed as a rule, although we have seen waxed and partially waxed “Vergins”.

All carved Castello pipes are graded by the number of K’s that are stamped on each piece and are K-graded by SIZE.  1K is the smallest and fairly rare, 2K is small to medium, with 3K or 4K being the most common and ranges from medium to medium large. Large pieces are stamped “G” for giant and extra-large pieces are stamped “GG” for double giant.  In addition to the number of K’s on a carved Sea Rock piece the shape number is almost always added. As a rule a Sea Rock Castello is stained Black, although recently there have been quite a few coming in stained deep brown and still stamped “Sea Rock”.  American Logo’d Sea Rocks are all priced the same to the consumer, although most are 2 or 3 K’ed models. G/GG models are charged at a higher price on American pieces and are basically the same as their European counterparts.

The Castello Sea Rock Briar KK 32 I was working on was definitely one made for the American Market with the Rhinestone in the stem. It had the dark finish or black stain.

Pipedia also gave a link to Mike’s Briar Blues site for help in dating and determining shapes (http://www.briarblues.com/castello.htm).

Shape numbers. Shape numbers are all 2 digits. A 2 in front indicates a “fancy” interpretation, a 3 in front means that the carving is somehow unique. I don’t know when the change was made, but currently, a π symbol is used instead of the 3xx. I’ve only seen this on Sea Rocks, but that doesn’t mean anything…

Now I had more information to work with. The Castello Sea Rock Briar in my hands was 2K graded. That told me that it is a mid-sized pipe. The number 32 makes it a unique and a Canadian shape.

I turned to work on the pipe itself. Jeff had done an amazing cleanup of the pipe. He reamed the 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, pipe cleaners and shank brushes. He scrubbed the externals with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and rinsed the bowl off with running water. His scrubbing removed the varnish on the bowl with just a few spots remaining. 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 soak did not penetrate the varnish on the stem at all but it certainly looked better. Other than the shiny spots in the finish where the varnish remained, the pipe looked very good when I received it.
I took close up photos of the bowl, rim top and stem to show how clean the pipe was. The bowl was clean and the rim top and the inner edge look beautiful. I would need to touch up the stain but it was very clean. The stem was clean and the chatter is light and hardly visible.I took a photo of the stamping on the underside of the shank. It is very clear and readable and read as noted above. I also removed the stem from the shank and took photos of the pipe to show the look of the parts.I touched up the rim top with a black stain pen to match the rest of the bowl sides and top. Once it is polished and buffed the match will be perfect.The exterior of the bowl was beautiful. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the briar with my finger tips and a shoe brush. I let it sit on the bowl for 10 minutes and then buffed it off with a paper towel and soft cloth. The product is a great addition to the restoration work. It enlivens, enriches and protects the briar while giving it a deep glow. It is a product I use on every pipe I restore. I set the bowl aside and turned to the stem. I sanded the it with 320-3500 grit sanding pads and wiped the stem down after each pad with some Obsidian Oil on a cloth. The shine is coming back beautifully.I polished it with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads and wiping the surface down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. It is really shining. I polished it further with Before & After Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine. I gave it another coat of Obsidian Oil to finish this step. This Castello Sea Rock Briar KK32 Canadian with an acrylic taper stem is a great looking pipe now that it has been restored. The beautifully deep rusticated finish really works well with the shape and the polished finish is stunning. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the bowl and the stem with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. 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 the entire pipe with a clean buffing pad. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Castello Sea Rock Briar KK32 Canadian fits nicely in the hand and feels great. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ¼ inches, Height: 1 ¾ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 39 grams /1.38 ounces. I will be putting it on the rebornpipes store in the Italian Pipe Makers Section shortly. Let me know via email or a message if you are interested in adding this pipe to your collection.

As always, I encourage your questions and comments as you read the blog. Thanks to each of you who are reading this blog. Remember we are not pipe owners; we are pipe men and women who hold our pipes in trust until they pass on into the trust of those who follow us.