Tag Archives: 1971 Dunhill Shell Briar RF F/T Pot

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.