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On My Diversionary Pipe Hunt I Found this French Made Lotus Bent Billiard

Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe on the table was second pipe I found on a recent trip to Alberta. I had a couple of hours to kill so I stopped at an antique mall along the way. The first was an Italian made cross grained Molina Bent Billiard that I already restored (https://rebornpipes.com/2023/09/27/took-a-diversionary-pipe-hunt-and-found-this-molina-81007-bent-billiard/). The second pipe I found was a French Made Bent Billiard. It was time to work on the second one now. On the left side of the shank it is stamped Lotus in script, underlined [over] Made in France. The pipe was in dirty condition. The finish on the bowl and shank were coated with a thick coat of grime and oils ground into the surface. There were many fills in the bowl sides, heel and the shank. The bowl had a thick cake that overflowed with a thick coat of lava on the rim top that obscured the inner and outer edges of the bowl. There appeared to be some damage on the front outer edge of the bowl. The black, hard rubber stem had an orific button and there was the beginning of a slot being shaped points to an older pipe. It was dirty and had tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. There were small white paint spots on the shank and the stem. I took photos of the pipe before I started my clean up work on it to give a clear photo of the condition of the pipe before I started my work. I took a photo of the bowl and the rim top. The bowl had a thick cake that covered the bowl walls and bottom. The rim top and the bevelled inner edge of the bowl had a thick lava overflow. There appeared to be some damage on the front outer edge of the bowl. It was hard to know for sure what was underneath until it was cleaned. The hard rubber stem shows light tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button as mentioned above. There were paint spots on the stem top and sides. It had promise but it was dirty!I took a photo of the left shank side to try to capture the stamping on the briar. It is clear and readable as noted above. I removed the stem from the shank and took a photo of the parts to give a sense of the pipe’s proportions.I dropped a message to Kenneth Lieblich about the pipe because of his love of French Made Pipes and his work on gathering information on them. He wrote me back with the following helpful hint.

I think Lotus was a line of Delacour Brothers. Delacour closed around 1960, so if it’s one of their pipes, it must be older than that.

He wrote back with some more information as well:

Very little, but there’s a possible tidbit. There is a lighter company called Lotus, but I don’t think that’s related. However, my tidbit is a tobacco shop in Paris called “Le Lotus”. It’s been there for a while, but I haven’t yet figured out how long. That seems like a possibility, however tenuous. It’s also possible that it’s a second from one of the big French companies, but I don’t have a listing for it.

Also, there was a Lotus brand made by Delacour Bros. — that might be the most likely. The St Claude branch of Delacour, not the London branch.

I started by looking up the tobacco shop in Paris that Kenneth referred to “Le Lotus”. I found the shop in Paris and it looks to be an amazing shop with a huge selection of cigars. It is an old style tobacco shop and I suppose it could have some pipe tobacco but there were no photos showing any available. It is still a shop that I would love to visit one day that is for certain.

I agreed with Kenneth’s suggestion that the pipe is probably made by the St. Claude brandch of Delacour. I decided to do some digging to see if I could find information that definitively linked the Lotus pipe to Delacour.

I turned first to Pipephil to see what I could learn (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-d4.html). It gave a brief history of the brand and link to both the French and British activities of the company. I have included a screen capture of the pertinent section and the comments from the side bar below. Delacour pipes were crafted in the St Claude (14 bis rue Carnot) factory. The brand was founded in the late 19th century by Alix Delacour and owned a subsidiary company in London. Their activities stopped in the late 1950s.

From there I turned to look up the brand on Pipedia (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Delacour). There was very little included in the article. In fact, it gave a very brief history and a link to the company website. I quote the article in its entirety below.

The Delacour factory was built around 1892 and expanded in 1893) in Saint-Claude, Jura, France, Rue Carnot 14 bis.

The owner was Alix Delacour. Already in 1909 the factory was further expanded. Delacour had their own briar drying facilities. In 1960, the pipe factory closed. (Brand name was probably taken over by Jeantet). The Delacour building harbored afterwards: an eye-wear company, dance school, restaurant, etc. There was not any direct mention of the Lotus brand in the material but the shape and the look of the pipe is much like the Delacour pipes. I am about 99% clear that the pipe is a Delacour pipe. Given that information it was time to work on the pipe itself.

I started my work by reaming the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer to remove the thick cake on the walls so I could see what they looked like. I used a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife to scrape off the remaining cake on the bowl walls. I followed that by sanding the walls of the bowl until they were smooth with 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. The bowl walls showed no checking or cracking which is remarkable. I cleaned off the rim top and bevelled inner edge carefully, wet sanding the rim top with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. It cleaned up quite well. I also gently topped the bowl with 220 grit sandpaper on a topping board to minimize the damage on the top and outer edge of the bowl. I scrubbed the bowl down with a tooth brush and some undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the grime and oils around the bowl and shank. I rinsed it down with warm water to remove the debris. I coloured in the fills with a Walnut stain pen then filled them in with a clear CA glue. There were nine fills around the bowl and also the rebuild of the damage on the front of the outer edge of the rim. I sanded the glue repairs to the fills with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. I smooth them out so that the surface of the repairs was smooth and blended together. I touched up the repaired spots and the bevelled inner edge of the rim with a Walnut stain pen to prepare the bowl for restaining. I stained the bowl with Fiebing’s Cordovan aniline stain. I flamed it and repeated the process until I was happy with the coverage on the bowl.I wiped the bowl down with isopropyl alcohol on cotton pads to make the stain more transparent and still leave the repaired fills hidden. I worked on the finish around the rim top and bowl with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit sanding pads to dry sand the briar. I wiped it down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth after each sanding pads. I rubbed the bowl and shank down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the surface of the bowl sides and shank with my fingertips and a horsehair shoe brush. The product works to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I let the balm sit for ten minutes and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. It was at that moment I remembered I had not cleaned the shank and stem. I turned to work on that now. I cleaned out the airway and mortise in the shank and the airway in the stem. I used 99% isopropyl alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs to remove the tars and oils. It was extremely dirty and once cleaned smelled and looked better.I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. It was in decent condition with very light tooth marks. I polished the stem surface with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads and was able to remove the marks. I wiped it down Obsidian Oil on a cotton cloth. I finished my polishing with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra-Fine polishes. I wiped it down with a final coat of Obsidian Oil and set aside.I am excited to finish restoration of this Lotus Made in France Bent Billiard. I put the pipe back together and buffed it with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I hand buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. It is fun to see what the polished bowl looks like with beautiful mixed grain all around it. I love the look of the polished grain on the pipe with the polished black hard rubber stem. It is a very beautiful looking pipe. This smooth Lotus Bent Billiard is great looking and the pipe feels great in my hand. It is light and well balanced. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 4 ½ inches, Height: 1 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inch, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 33 grams/1.16 ounces. It turned out to be a beautiful pipe. I will be putting it on the rebornpipes store in the French Pipemakers Section soon. If you are interested in adding it to your collection let me know. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it.

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.

Kenneth’s Pipe Incident Report

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Blog by Kenneth Lieblich

Here is another instalment of my Pipe Incident Report. The idea, in general, is to provide a brief write-up – focusing on a particular pipe-related problem and/or solution, rather than an entire restoration story. Previous articles in this series have discussed such things as plaster of Paris, lemon-infused isopropyl alcohol, Cordovan stain, et cetera. Today, I will talk you through my process of repairing a badly damaged shank. This shank was not simply cracked (as is often the case), but, as the photos show, was missing a large chunk of briar. One’s first question might be, “Why bother fixing this at all? Toss it in the fireplace!” That’s a fair point. In this case, however, the owner of the pipe wanted to keep it as a memento of her grandfather. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I was only too happy to help fulfill her wish.The pipe is a no-name churchwarden (with the word “Czech” along the shank) and it had clearly been through the wars. Not literally, of course, but this pipe was smoked hard! The old fellow must have loved this pipe and it must have smoked well. The stummel was full of cake, lava erupting on the rim, and fills everywhere – in fact, I counted no fewer than 39 fills. Anyway, let’s take a closer look at the shank. You can see what the problem is. My guess is that the shank was broken when the stem was removed from it at an inopportune moment. The tenon on the stem is an odd metal thing, which I suspect might be a replacement. The tenon and mortise certainly don’t fit together very well. Regardless, the tenon needs to be repaired in a manner that is both structurally sound and aesthetically pleasing.Furrowing my brow, I consulted with Steve about solutions he’s used in the past for this sort of problem. He initially proposed building up the shank with a mixture of briar dust and CA glue. This is what I had originally considered too, but I also toyed with the idea of actually using a chunk of briar in place of the missing wood. Steve said it might be fun to try, so that’s what I did. Regardless of which technique I used, the shank would have to be banded in order to provide structural integrity and (preferably) to hide some of the repair – which will be unsightly no matter what.

I have some wrecked stummels among my workbench items. I picked one, broke off a piece, and set about fitting it in place. It was immediately apparent that I needed a bit more wood, so I took another, smaller piece and fit that one too. I must admit, it took some trimming, filing, and general tinkering/fiddling to make it fit. Once I had a reasonable fit, I glued the pieces to the shank with CA glue. There were still gaps among the cracks and I dealt with that by adding a mixture of CA glue and briar dust.

Once the CA glue was cured, I set about filing, sanding, and shaping my repair. I obviously sanded the top of the shank to make it look normal, but I also sanded the end because the added bits extended beyond the main part of the shank. I also ensured that there was no roughness (or other problems) inside the mortise. To that end, I also gently filed the mortise. What an improvement! Fortunately, I found the perfect band to place on this stummel. It was made of brass, fit very snuggly, and – most importantly – it was quite long. The band covered all repairs beautifully.After prepping the stummel, I stained it so as to provide some camouflage for the aforementioned fills. I then added the band with some glue and polished it to a shine. The photo below is not quite the finished product but it is close enough to show what a difference this repair made.If you do try this type of shank repair, please let me know how it goes. I would be interested to know what your results are. I hope you enjoyed reading this instalment of the Pipe Incident Report – I look forward to writing more. If you are interested in my work, please follow me here on Steve’s website or email me directly at kenneth@knightsofthepipe.com. Thank you very much for reading and, as always, I welcome and encourage your comments.

Refreshing an unsmoked, varnished FRB Old Briar Bent Egg

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Blog by Steve Laug

The next pipe I have chosen is mixed finish Full Bent Egg. It came to us in a Chacom pipe sock in a FRB was clean and unsmoked with a varnished finish but had some good looking grain around the bowl sides and shank. It came to us as part of a trade on 01/12/2023. The pipe is stamped on the left side of the shank and reads FRB in an oval with Old Bruyere arched underneath it. It is stamped on the right side and reads MFD BY ROSSI [over] BY ROSSI. The pipe was clean as noted and very shiny with a top coat when he brought it to the table. It was smooth with rusticated patches around the bowl sides, base and shank. There were also a lot of putty fills in the rusticated areas. The rim top and edges were very clean. The rim top but the edges of the bowl were very clean. Some of the putty in the rustication on the shank end and sides was pitted and damaged. The stem was clean with no oxidation or calcification on it. There were no tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside on and near the button. There was a white circle with a dot logo on the left side of the taper stem. The inside of the tenon held an inner tube. Jeff took photos of the pipe before his cleanup work. They tell the story and give a glimpse of the promise that we see in this pipe. Jeff took photos of the rim top and stem to show the general condition of the pipe. The bowl is clean, unsmoked and the rim top and the inner edge of the bowl is also clean. The photos of the stem show no damage or marks on the stem surface. Jeff took some photos of the bowl sides and heel to show the mixed finish of rustication and smooth. The photos show that patterns in the rustication and to some degree the putty that was in the rustication around this bowl and shank. It is a nice looking pipe. He took a photo of the left side of the shank to show the stamping. The stamping is readable in the photo below and is as noted above. He did not take a photo of the right side as it is hidden slightly in the rustication. He also captured the white circle logo on the left side of the stem. You can also see what appears to be a chip in the shank next to the stem. Looking at it closely it appears to me that the area is not a chip but rather it is a spot where the fill is chipped or shrunken. I will be able to confirm that once I see it in person.I turned to Pipephil’s site (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-n1.html#ninorossi) to see what I could find on the FRB brand. There was nothing specifically on that. I did however make the connection to the stamping on the right side to Rossi. I looked up information on pipes made by Nino Rossi and low and behold there was a photo and a bit of information that connects the Rossi Brand to FRB. I have included the photo of the pertinent section below. It reads as follows:

After the first world war Leonida Rossi was designated as chairman and joined by his brothers. The name of the corporate because Fratelli Rossi Barasso hence FRB abbreviation.

So, I now knew that the FRB and Rossi connection is very clear. I would need more information to pin down the dates that FRB was stamped and where the FRB fit in the Rossi hierarchy.I then turned to the Pipe Brands and Makers list for Italy on Pipedia to see if I could get an even tighter connection to Rossi (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Pipe_Brands_%26_Makers_D_-_F). I found the connection in the list. It read as follows and contained a link to Rossi on Pipedia.

FRB Fratelli Rossi Barasso. See Rossi.

I turned to the article on Pipedia on Rossi to see if could get a sense of the timing and the placement of the FRB line in the Rossi hierarchy (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Rossi). I quote from that article below.

Ferdinando Rossi from Milan was one of the most important wholesalers for tobacco related goods of northern Italy. When he attended one of his pipe suppliers in Saint-Claude in 1880 he got hooked on the idea to establish this manner of industrialised briar pipe production in Italy as well. Rossi went abroad several times to buy the hardware here and there because the special features of machines for pipemaking were secrets – well kept by the French in those days. Many machines and tools had to be modified on Rossi’s defaults.

He acquired a large area of land in Barasso in the province of Varese and founded the Fabbrica di Pipe di Radica Rossi in 1886. For sure there was no lack of skilled workers and Rossi personally recruited 30 craftsmen of different occupations from the environment to get started. After a few years the enterprise had developed well and entered into export trades. In 1892 e.g. the ledgers registered the first pipes shipped to Brazil.

One reason of success was the ultramodern conception of the factory and its equipment at the given time. To give an example: a system of canals invented by Rossi drove water to turbines propelling downstream generators, which supplied the entire machinery with electricity. Also lighting and heating were already electrically operated.

In the first years after 1900 Rossi grew steadily and became one of the ten biggest pipe manufacturers of the world. Rossi’s rapid ascent produced further foundations of pipemaking firms in the area around the Lake of Varese.

1897 Gerolamo Ceresa (starting as subcontractor for Rossi) in Cassano Magnano
1900 Fratelli Lana in Gallarate (bought by Tagliabue in 1922)
1910 Stefano Santambrogio (working with Lana and with Rossi before) in Groppello di Gavirate
1911 Federico, Carlo, Cornelio and Francesco Rovera (all working for Rossi before) even there.

So the province of Varese became the most important center of Italy’s pipemaking industry after the turn of the century. Still going strong today along with the brands in the provinces of Como and of Pesaro.

From 1918 on Leonida Rossi supported his father in the management of the company. Later he was designated as chairman and joined by his brothers. Rossi now formed as Fratelli Rossi Barasso shortly FRB….

…Dating Rossi pipes

From the beginning of its activity and until, surely, 1918, the most part of Rossi pipes was just marked with “REAL BRIAR”, “VERA RADICA” or “BRUYERE GARANTIE” (or something similar): this can easily be explained by the enormous amount of pipes daily producted, which requires the fastest solution.

From, approximatively, Twenties, Rossi pipes were marked with “FRB” (Fratelli Rossi Barasso) or “MFRB” (Manifattura Fratelli Rossi Barasso), into an oval and above “OLD BRIAR” (or similar – sometimes, there was also “MFD. BY ROSSI”, as “Manufactured by Rossi”); on the stem, there was generally the “R” letter in circle. However, “FRB OLD BRIAR” was maintained for the “traditional pipes” (for cheap models – see below), surely, to Sixties.

From, approximatively, the fiftieth anniversary (1936), pipes were marked with “Rossi” (in cursive font), with model name just under it; on the stem, there was “ROSSI” (for expensive models like “extra”, which had the best quality; “racine”, which was rusticated by hand; “extra grain”, which was accurately sandblasted; “super”, which had the best briar selection, and a limited production; “fiamma”, which was the best selection of Sardinia and Greece briar, and a very limited production) or “R” in circle (for unexpensive models like “standard”, “grana” and “FRB”).

From, approximatively, Seventies, until 1985, Rossi pipes were marked with “ROSSI”, into an oval (sometimes there was also “ITALY” on the shank); on the stem, there was “ROSSI”. In these years, appeared the signature “Nino Rossi” (in cursive font): he was the last heir of the factory.

Now I knew a bit more about the pipe I was working on. The older versions of the FRB pipe were made between 1920 – 1936. After 1936 the majority of pipes were marked Rossi and were made of the best briar. There were also cheaper pipes/less expensive models like the FRB stamped pipes continued to be offered as entry level pipes. During that time period they were stamped like the one I am working on. I believe that the one in hand is not an older version of the pipe but is rather one of the newer cheaper pipes.

Jeff had done a great job cleaning up the pipe as usual. He scrubbed the interior of the bowl and shank with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol to remove dust and debris. He scrubbed the exterior of the pipe with Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush to remove the grime from the finish. He scrubbed the inside of the stem with alcohol and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior with Soft Scrub and then soaked it in Briarville Pipe Stem Deoxidizer. He washed it off with warm water to remove the Deoxidizer. The pipe came to me in its original box and I took photos of it before I removed it from the pipe sock in the box.I removed it from the box and took photos of the pipe as it looked after Jeff’s cleanup. The fills are very obvious in the rusticated patterns but otherwise it is a charming pipe that sits well in hand. I took some close up photos of the rim top and also of the stem surface. I wanted to show the condition of both of them They were clean and looked very good.I took photos of the stamping on the sides of the shank. You can see that it is stamped as noted above. It is clear and readable. I removed the stem and took a photo of the pipe to have a look at the parts and overall look. I decided to address the shiny topcoat on the bowl. I wiped the varnish coat off the briar with acetone on a cotton pad. I was careful removing it around the putty fills in the rusticated areas of the pipe. I did not want to damage the putty with the acetone. It looked much better with the shiny coat covering both the smooth and rusticated portions of the briar. I let the acetone evaporate from the finish and used a Walnut stain pen to touch up the rusticated areas and the putty fills. It looked better with that finished.I filled in the chipped putty areas on the shank with clear CA glue. I let it cure then sanded it smooth with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. I smoothed it out with 1500-2400 grit sandpaper and restained it with a Walnut stain pen. I polished the bowl and shank with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped down the bowl after each pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding debris. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the bowl and shank with my fingertips to clean, enliven and protect the briar. I let the balm sit for 15 minutes and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. I set the bowl aside and turned to the stem. It was in great condition so I polished it with Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine and buffed it off with a cotton cloth. I gave it a coat of Obsidian Oil to preserve and protect the stem. I am excited to finish this Rossi Made FRB Old Briar Bent Egg. I put the pipe back together and carefully buffed it with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I hand buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. It is fun to see what the polished bowl looks like with beautiful mixed grain all around it. Added to that the polished black vulcanite stem combined with the bowl and brass band on the shank and made a stunning pipe. This mixed finish FRB Old Briar Made by Rossi Bent Egg is great looking and the pipe feels great in my hand. It is light and well balanced. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 2 ¼ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/8 inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 42 grams/1.48 ounces. It is a beautiful pipe that I will soon be putting on the rebornpipes store in the Italian Pipe Makers Section. If you are interested in adding it to your collection send me an email or a message. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me as I worked over this pipe. Thanks to each of you who are reading this blog.

Restoring an older 1939-1945 Vauen Dr. Perl D.R.W.Z. Bruyere Extra 6140 Bulldog

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Blog by Steve Laug

In the last box of pipes Jeff sent me there was a nice looking straight Bulldog. It came to us through our connection Copenhagen, Denmark on 10/17/2022. It is stamped on the left side of the shank and reads Vauen [arched over] Dr. Perl [over] D.R.W.Z. On the right side of the shank it was stamped Bruyere [arched over] twin pipes (logo) with Extra arched underneath. On the left underside of the diamond shank it was stamped with the shape number 6140. The pipe had charm for sure but it was a very dirty pipe when we received it. The finish was smooth finish on the bowl and shank with classic twin rings around the cap of the bowl. There was a heavy cake in the bowl that darkened the inner edge and overflowed as a thick lava coat on the rim top. The vulcanite, taper stem was oxidized, calcified and there were light tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside ahead of the button. The tenon was made for Vauen Dr. Perl 9mm filters. Jeff took some photos of the pipe before he started his cleanup work. He took photos of the bowl and rim top to show their general condition. You can see the thick cake in the bowl and the heavy lava coat in the top of the rim and inner edge of the bowl. The finish on the bowl is very dirty with grime and oils ground into the bowl, but still very stunning. This pipe has a class straight Bulldog look to me. The P-lip style taper stem that has some oxidation, calcification on the surface of the vulcanite. There is chatter and tooth marks on the top and underside. On the underside near the button was a thick spot of goop – a repair possibly? I don’t think so, I think it rather is debris that should clean off. Jeff took some photos of the sides and heel of the bowl to give an idea of the grain and the finish around the bowl and shank. It is amazing and I cannot wait to see what it looks like once it is polished and waxed. He took a photo of the cut and fill marks on the right side of the bowl toward the shank. The sharp cuts will not steam out.He took photos of the stamping on the shank sides to capture how they look at this point. They are clear and readable as noted above. I wanted to get some background on the Dr. Perl pipe by Vauen. I turned first to Pipephil’s site (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-v1.html). I did a screen capture of the information on the site. There was a great sidebar that gave some history of the brand. I include both of them below. There was also a note at the bottom of the screen capture below that has a link to the Vauen Dr Perl variant on the P-Lip pipe.In 1848, Karl Ellenberger and his partner Carl August Ziener establish a pipe factory in Nuremberg. In 1901 they merge with Gebhard Ott an other factory in town and they create a firm named Vereinigten Pfeifenfabriken Nürnberg (abbreviated : VPFN*). Shortly after Ernst Eckert, a member of the Ott family became manager of the society. During the 20th century Adolf, Ernst (jr) and Alexander Eckert (CEO in 2012) followed one another at Vauen’s head.* VPFN : “V” is said VAU in German (pronounce faou) and “N” becomes EN. Hence VAUEN.

I followed that link on the bottom of the photo above (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/infos/p-lip-en.html). I found that there was description of the Vauen Dr. Perl that had the same style stem as the pipe I was working on. I have included a screen capture of the Dr. Perl pipe below:I also turned to a blog written on rebornpipes by Dal Stanton (Pipesteward.com) that I quote a section from the blog below that gives a great sense of the history of the German brand and some photos from the website (https://rebornpipes.com/2021/04/27/breathing-new-life-into-a-german-vauen-6294-p-lip-saddle-billiard-for-a-special-young-lady/).

… I turn to the question of the history of the VAUEN name? I look to the History section of the VAUEN website and again, I am impressed with the presentation. Whenever I work on a pipe, and especially when a pipe name is new to me, I enjoy looking at its history to appreciate the pipe more fully now on my worktable. From VAUEN’s website:Quality and a wealth of ideas have a long tradition at VAUEN. 160 years of VAUEN: that means 160 years of skilled workmanship and modern technology and 160 years of experience in fulfilling the individual wishes of today’s pipe lovers, and those of tomorrow.

In Nuremberg in 1848, Karl Ellenberger and his partner Carl August Ziener turned an idea into reality: Germany’s first pipe manufacturer produced tobacco pipes for connoisseurs around the world using a selection of the best wood. In an amalgamation with the Gebhard Ott pipe factory, which was founded in 1866 in Nuremberg, the Vereinigten Pfeifenfabriken Nuremberg (United Pipe Factories Nuremberg, or VPFN) was born in 1901. Under the management of Ernst Eckert, a descendent of the founding Ott family, a company was born whose products and services would shape the tobacco and smoking culture in Europe and overseas for the next 160 years and counting.

The question about the name, VAUEN, not being a name of a person and why it is capitalized throughout is explained:

In his search for a name that would be easily remembered by all pipe lovers, Ernst Eckert’s son, Adolf Eckert, coined a new name for the company in 1909: VAUEN – a composition of the first letters V (pronounced vow) of Vereinigte Pfeifenfabriken and N (pronounced en) of Nuremberg. A brand for the future was born.

I did a final search for information on the D.R.W.Z. stamp to see if it could help me establish a date for this pipe. I found a link to one stamped the same though in a different shape number (https://vkpipes.com/pipeline/vauen-dr-perl-d-r-w-z-3232/). I quote a portion of the article below and have highlighted a pertinent portion in red.

VAUEN Dr. Perl D.R.W.Z. 3232

Germany, 1939-45

VAUEN is really a phenomenal company – one of the oldest and largest European pipe businesses remains at the same time very flexible and innovative: they not only freely experiment with shapes and finishes, but regularly offer basically new solutions such as the “Pipo” or the “Zeppelin”.

Unfortunately unlike other big manufacturers the history of VAUEN products is not well documented: many documents and catalogues wee lost in the end of the World War II, nowadays company launches about 50 models every year, so it’s hardly possible to systematize all that variety.

Nevertheless this pipe can be easily identified as a VAUEN product made between 1939 and 1945: the stamping “D.R.W.Z” (Deutsches Reichs Waren Zeichen – a kind of a registered trademark) was applied only within that perios and was replaced after the end of the War by “registered (German) trademark”. So there’s a really old and historical pipe for your attention.

With that information at hand I turned to work on the pipe itself. Jeff had thoroughly cleaned up the pipe. He reamed the pipe with a PipNet Pipe Reamer and cleaned up the remnants with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed the bowl with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap with a tooth brush. He rinsed it under running warm water to remove the soap and grime. He cleaned out the inside of the shank and the airway in the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the stem with Soft Scrub to remove as much of the oxidation and calcification as possible. He soaked the stem in Briarville’s Pipe Stem Deoxidizer and rinsed it off with warm water. I took photos of the pipe once I started to work on it. I took some photos of the rim top and stem. The rim top and bowl looked very good. The cake and lava overflow were gone but the rim top and edges showed a lot of burn marks and darkening. Both the smooth portion and the plateau portion would need a bit more work to really clean up well. The closeup photos of the stem shows that it is a much cleaner and looks good. The light tooth marks and chatter were still present on both sides.I took photos of the stamping on the sides of the shank to show the condition after the cleanup. It was very readable and undamaged. I took the stem off the shank and took a photo of the pipe to give a sense of the proportions of the pipe. I started my restoration work on this pipe by addressing the darkening around the inner edge of the bowl and the rim top. I used a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to clean up the inner edge and the rim top. The finished rim top looked much better.I filled in the shrunken fills and the chips/cuts in the right side of the bowl below the twin rings of the cap with clear CA glue. I used a tooth pick to fill in the holes. Once it cured I sanded the areas smooth with 220 grit sandpaper to blend it into the surface. I touched up the sanded areas with a Walnut stain pen to blend them into the surrounding briar. I started my polishing regimen on the bowl. I used nine micromesh sanding pads and dry sanded the bowl with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down with a damp cloth after each pad. The bowl really shines by the final three pads. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar with my fingertips and into the twin rings with a shoe brush to clean, enliven and protect it. I let the balm sit for a little while and then buffed with a cotton cloth to raise the shine. The photos show the bowl at this point in the restoration process. I set the bowl aside and polished out the tooth marks and chatter with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with some Obsidian Oil on a cotton cloth to remove the sanding debris. I finished the polishing routine with some Before & After Pipe Stem Polish – both Fine and Extra Fine and buffed it off with a cotton cloth. I gave it a coat of Obsidian Oil to preserve and protect the stem. Once I finish a filter stem I like to fit it with a clean filter. In this case I do not have the filters to fit it. My thinking is that it was made for a Dr. Perl Junior 6mm filter. The pipeman or woman who adds this pipe to his/her collection will have to pick some up. I have included a photo of what I think the filters will be.I finished with the Blue Diamond and moved on to buffing with carnauba wax. Once I have a good shine in the briar and vulcanite I always give the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I have found that I can get a deeper shine if I following up the wax buff with a clean buffing pad. It works to raise the shine and then I follow that up with a hand buff with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. It is always fun for me to see what the polished bowl looks like with the polished stem. It really is a beautiful pipe. The bowl coating and build up of cigar mud should harden and provide a base for the build up of new cake. The sand blast finish around the bowl sides and shank show the grain patterns underneath the rich brown stains of this Vauen Dr. Perl D.R.W.Z. Bruyere Extra 6140 Filter Straight Bulldog and the polished vulcanite taper stem is a great addition. The finished pipe feels great in my hand. It is light and well balanced. Have a look at it with the photos below. The dimensions are Length: 6 inches, Height: 1 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.16 ounces/33 grams. It is a beautiful pipe that I will have to tell a friend of mine about who collects Vauen pipes. I look forward to hearing what he thinks of it.

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 pipemen and women who hold our pipes in trust until they pass on into the trust of those who follow us.

A Second Pipe from the Old Gentleman’s Estate – A Cracked Shank Whitehall 1B Rustic Apple

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Blog by Steve Laug

I decided I needed a change of pace in my restoration/clean up work. I went through my pipes waiting in the queue and chose pone from a group of four pipes that were given to us by a woman in Columbus, Ohio, USA. It had belonged to her Grandfather who lived from 1882 to 1977. There were four pipes that she sent us from his estate – the metal bowled apple, a cased meerschaum with a broken shank and an amber stem, a Whitehall rusticated apple and a BBB Glokar Fraternity Pipe.Even though I generally pass on Whitehall pipes I decided to work on this one because it came with a great back story. The older pipe man who had used it obviously had enjoyed it beyond measure. Since he passed away in 1977 I knew that the pipe was much earlier than that. It was well smoked, reamed with a knife. And it had continued to be smoked even after the shank crack. I am guessing from the marks on the stem that the crack happened when he tried to remove the stem with a pair of pliers. The stamp on the left side of the shank read Whitehall 1B [over] Imported Briar. The pipe was dirty and well used. The finish had deep grime ground into the rustication around the bowl. The bowl had tobacco debris in it and a very thick cake overflowing as lava onto the rim top. The rim top looked to be in rough condition with damage from reaming and burns particularly on the back side of the edge and top. The stem was vulcanite and fit the cracked shank well. It had oxidation, calcification and deep gouges from pliers just behind the saddle. There were light tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his cleanup work.Jeff took photos of the rim top and bowl to show the condition. You can see the thick cake int eh bowl and the lava coat on the top of the rim. The inner edge of the bowl is a mess and very out of round. It was obviously her grandfather’s favourite pipe even though some of his others were nicer. The vulcanite saddle stem was oxidized, calcified and had deep nicks at the saddle end from what appeared to be pliers. It too was going to take some work. Jeff took photos of the cracked shank to show the condition of the crack. He also took photos of the damage to the stem surface just behind the saddle on both sides where it looks like the stem was twisted with pliers. Jeff took photos of the sides and heel of the bowl to show the composition of the pipe. The combination of smooth and rustication is quite nice. There are Custom-bilt like channels from top to bottom of the bowl and horizontal rustication around the bowl between the channels. The rim top and top half of the bowl are smooth. The shank has horizontal rustication all around leaving a smooth panel on the left side for the stamping. It is quite nice looking. He took a photo of the stamping on the smooth panel on the left side of the shank. You can see that it is readable as noted above.I knew that there was a connection between Block Brothers Tobacco and Whitehall as I have had pipe coupons in boxes of Kentucky Club tobacco but I wanted to verify that and get the details. I turned to the listing on Pipedia for Whitehall and read it (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Whitehall). I quote from the site below.

Whitehall pipes are frequently misunderstood to be a model rather than an actual pipe company, which has led collectors to mistakenly ascribe their manufacture to Civic and Ben Wade (Who Made That Pipe; Wilczak & Colwell, 1997). In fact, Whitehall refers to the pipe company (not a model), which itself produced models such as the Hialeah, Jumbos, London Hall, and Thermofilter. The history of the Whitehall Pipe Co., Inc. (Richmond Hill, NY), is a complicated one, involving several parent companies and subsidiaries including Whitehall Products, Inc. (Helmetta, NJ), The Bloch Bros. Tobacco Co. (Wheeling, WV), Helme Products, Inc., apparently all subsidiaries of Culbro Corp. (owner also of General Cigar). The “Imported Briar” stamp on many of the pipes, and the unmistakable Whitehall logo bearing resemblance to the American-made tobaccos of that brand strongly suggest that these are products made for the Whitehall Pipe Co., Inc., an American company. There is furthermore no evidence that Civic or Ben Wade outsourced any manufactory of pipes to Italy; nor did Ben Wade manufacture pipes with aluminum screw tenons, paper filter inserts and molded acrylic stems. For irrefutable proof that the American company Whitehall Pipe Co., Ltd., was, in fact, responsible for these brands, one need only consult the University of California, San Francisco “Truth Tobacco Archives” which clearly links these brands to the company (see image below) [on the Pipedia site]…

When the pipe arrived in Vancouver it was very clean. The briar and stem were spotless. The vulcanite stem looked much better and you can see the gouges in the top and underside behind the saddle. The crack in the shank was also very clean and ready to repair. Jeff had reamed the bowl with a Pipenet Pipe Reamer and cleaned up the bowl walls with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed the airway in the stem and shank with pipe cleaners, cotton swabs and alcohol. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl and shank with Murphy’s Oil Soap (undiluted) and a tooth brush. He rinsed the exterior with warm running water and dried. He polished the briar and stem with a small drop of olive oil. The pipe really looked very good. It was going to be a fun one to work on for my part. I took photos of the pipe when I brought it to the table for my work. This is what I saw. I took photos of the bowl and the rim top to show the condition. It is clean and the damage is quite extensive. The bowl is very clean and there were nicks, burn damage and cuts all around the inner edge and top. The bowl was out of round due to the damage. The crack on the top left of the shank is also visible in the photo below. The vulcanite stem is clean and the damage visible at the blade where it joins the saddle portion. The button and stem surface ahead of the button is clean and undamaged. I took a photo of the left shank side to capture the stamping on the briar. It is faint but it is still readable. I took a photo of the bowl and shank separated to show the condition of the pipe. It really is a great looking pipe.I started my work on the pipe by addressing the cracked shank. I smoothed out the end of the shank so that the band would fit smoothly and not be hampered by the rustication. I used the Dremel and a sanding drum to get it prepared for the band. I heated the band and pressed it onto the shank end. It fit well and bound the crack tightly together. With the shank repair complete I turned to address the issues with the rim top and edge. I started by smoothing out some of the damage with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper. I topped the bowl on a topping board with 220 grit sandpaper to flatten on the damage on the rim top. I used a wooden ball and a piece of sandpaper to give the rim edge an inward bevel and smooth out the top. It looked much better! I filled in the damaged back inner edge of the bowl with clear CA glue and briar dust. The edge was damaged but it did not go deeply into the bowl. I sanded out the inside of the edge with a piece of 220 sandpaper wrapped around a dowel. I smoothed out the rim top with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper and bevelled the rim a bit more with the sandpaper. I stained the rim top with a Maple Stain Pen to match the smooth portions of the bowl. It was looking good. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – 1500-12000 grit pads. I dry sanded the briar and then progressively brought a shine to the pipe. It looked really amazing – the combination of rustic and smooth portions of the briar. It is a beauty! I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the finish with my fingertips and a shoe brush. The product works to clean, preserve and protect the briar. I let it sit and absorb for 10 minutes. I buffed it off with a soft cloth and then gave it a rigorous buff to raise the shine. It looks good at this point. I filled in the gouges in the stem surface on both sides by the saddle with black CA rubberized glue. Once it cured I sanded it smooth with 220 grit sandpaper and started polishing it with 600 grit wet dry sandpaper.I polished out the scratches left behind by the sandpaper on the stem surface with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil on a cloth after the sanding pads. I finished the hand polishing of the stem with Before & After Pipe Polish – both the Fine and Extra Fine polishes. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian oil and set it aside to dry. I am really happy with the way that this Whitehall Rusticated Imported Briar 1B Apple turned out. It really is a beautiful looking pipe with a great shape and smooth finished on the upper half of the bowl and rusticated on the lower portion of the bowl and shank. The vulcanite saddle stem turned out very nice. The polished stem works well with the briar both the smooth and rusticated finish. The briar really came alive with the buffing. The rich brown stains of the finish gave the pipe a sense of depth with the polishing and waxing. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel using a light touch on the briar. I gave the bowl multiple coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Whitehall Rusticated Saddle Stem Apple really is a beauty and feels great in the hand and looks very good. 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 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 27 grams/ .95 ounces. I will be putting the pipe on the rebornpipes store in the American Pipemakers Section. If you would like to add it to your collection let me know. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. It was a fun one to work on!

Cleaning up a Republic Era Peterson’s 53 Straight Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

I purchased two Peterson’s pipes from a fellow in Eastern Canada. They are shown in the photo below. The top one is a Republic Era K&P Irish Made 53 Billiard. The second one is a 120 Dublin. You will note in the photo below that there is an extra stem included. It is an acrylic fishtail stem that was made for the 120. It is significantly longer (1 inch) than the original and the angles of the curve are more pronounced so the flow of the stem does not look at all the same. The acrylic stem is thicker and does not have the delicacy of the original.Today I decided to work on the second pipe, the Straight Billiard. It is stamped on the left side and reads K&P [over] Irish Made. On the right side of the shank it reads Made in the Republic of Ireland (three lines) followed by the shape number 53. The grain is quite nice on the pipe. There is a nickel ferrule on the shank that is stamped with three symbols – a shamrock. a wolf hound and a tower. These makers marks put the pipe as pre-circa 1963. The briar was dirty with grime ground into the finish. There was a thick cake in the bowl with darkening and lava overflow onto the inner edge and the rim top. The pipe had a strong smell of the tobacco that had been smoked in it. There is a hint of aromatic to it. The shank was dirty with tars. The stem was an original fishtail made by Peterson. There was some oxidation, calcification and light tooth marks on both sides of the stem. I took photos of the pipe when I brought it to the table to show its condition. I took photos of the rim top and bowl to show the condition of both. You can see the cake and tobacco debris in the bowl and the lava overflowing onto the back edge and rim top. The grain shows through and I think it will clean up very well. You can see the chatter on both sides of the stem ahead of the button and the oxidation and light calcification as well.I took photos of the stamping on the sides of the shank. The stamping is clear and readable. I also took a photo of the pipe with the stem removed to show the look of the pipe and show its balance. It is a beauty. I started my work on the pipe by addressing the cake and the lava on the rim top and edges of the bowl. I reamed it with a PipNet pipe reamer and took the cake back to bare briar. I cleaned up the remaining cake with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. I sanded the bowl walls smooth with a piece of 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a piece of dowel. The pipe walls were clean and undamaged with no checking or cracking. I sanded the rim edge and the top with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out and remove the darkening and the damage to the top and edge. It looked much better than when I started. I would still need to polish out the darkening.I scrubbed the externals of the bowl and shank with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. I rinsed the soap and debris off the bowl with running water. I repeated the process until the rim top and the externals were very clean. It looked very good at this point. I cleaned out the internals of the shank, mortise and the airway in the stem with alcohol, pipe cleaners and cotton swabs. It took a bit of time but it came out clean. There was still a residual smell, a ghost that I would need to work on. Now it was time to deghost the pipe. I stuffed the bowl with cotton bolls and twisted another boll into the shank. I filled the bowl with 99% isopropyl alcohol using and ear syringe. I set it aside to let the mix do its work wicking the oils and tars out of the bowl. It would sit for while I worked on the stem. After four hours I took photos of the bowl and the cotton. It had taken out a lot of tars and oils. I polished the outside of the briar with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down with a damp cloth after each sanding pad to remove the sanding debris. The stain was uneven around the heal of the bowl and on the rim top so I touched up the stain with a Maple Stain Pen. It blended in with the surrounding stain on the upper portion of the bowl. I would need to buff it to further blend it into the surface.I rubbed the bowl down with Before & After Restoration Balm. I worked it into the finish with my fingertips. The product works to clean, preserve and protect the briar. I let it sit and absorb for 10 minutes. I buffed it off with a soft cloth and then gave it a rigorous buff to raise the shine. It looks good at this point. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. I sanded out the oxidation on the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to break it up. I started the polishing with 600 grit wet dry sandpaper. When finished I wiped it down with some Obsidian Oil. There was still some oxidation remaining on the stem so I would need to do more to remove it.I scrubbed the stem with Soft Scrub cleanser and cotton pads to remove the remaining oxidation. It worked very well and removed all of the oxidation that remained on the stem.I polished out the chatter and marks on the stem surface with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding with 1500-12000 grit sanding pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil on a cloth after the sanding pads. I finished the hand polishing of the stem with Before & After Pipe Polish – both the Fine and Extra Fine polishes. I gave it a final coat of Obsidian oil and set it aside to dry. I am really happy with the way that this Republic Era K&P Irish Made 53 Billiard with a Nickel Ferrule turned out. It really is a beautiful looking pipe with a great shape and smooth finished bowl and rim top. The original vulcanite taper stem is really nice. The polished black of the stem works well with the briar and the nickel ferrule. The briar really came alive with the buffing. The rich brown stains of the finish gave the pipe a sense of depth with the polishing and waxing. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel using a light touch on the briar. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax on the buffing wheel. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed the pipe with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The finished Republic Era K&P Irish Made Billiard really is a beauty and feels great in the hand and looks very good. Give the finished pipe a look in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ¾ 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 37 grams/ 1.31 ounces. The pipe will be going on the rebornpipes store soon. It will be in the section on Irish Pipe Makers Section if you would like to add it to your collection. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it. It was a fun one to work on!

Resurrecting a Large Dunhill Bruyere ODA 836 Panel Billiard

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Blog by Steve Laug

A few weeks ago I was contacted from a fellow in Montana who was selling his pipes as they had not been used for quite a few years. I asked him for a picture and he sent me the one to the left. It included the following brands (from the top to the bottom of the photo): Savinelli Autograph 5 Freehand, Mastro de Paja Ciocco 0C Bulldog, Mastro de Paja Media 1B Bent Billiard, Ser Jacopo Delecta Octagonal Bent Billiard, Caminetto Business KS 118 Canadian, Radici Rind Rhodesian, Dunhill Bruyere ODA 836 Panel Billiard, Barontini Straight Grain B3 Freehand and a Ben Wade Martinique Hand Made in Denmark Freehand.

Almost all of them were higher end pipes and all were hand made pipes. They were a mix of finishes – smooth, sandblast and also rusticated. They were a mix of shapes as well and the majority of them were Italian Made other than the Dunhill and the Ben Wade Martinique. They were beautiful pipes and after exchanging quite a few photos of the pipes from various angles to get a sense of what was there we struck a deal. We sent him the payment and the pipes arrived in Idaho a few days after I left for Vancouver.

Jeff cleaned them all and this week I received them in Vancouver. I am impressed with the way they cleaned up and the beauty of the brands. They truly are some beautiful pipes. I just need to put the final touches on each of them and address minor issues on the bowl rims and the stems and they should be good to go. I am really looking forward to working on each of them in the days ahead.

This warm, late afternoon I decided to continue working on the lot. I chose to work on the smooth Dunhill Bruyere Panel. This one is a bit different than any of the other Dunhill pipes that I have worked on. It is very nice looking piece of briar and has a square stem. The pipe is stamped on the sides of the shank. It was clear and readable. On the left side the shape number reads ODA [over] 836 followed by the stamping Dunhill [over] Bruyere. On the right side it is stamped Made in [over] England followed by an equal size 14. The reddish/brown stained finish was very dirty with grime ground in the finish all over the whole bowl and shank. Toward the bottom of left side of the bowl there was some road rash. It was rough and I would need to smooth it out some – though it would never truly be gone. The bowl had a thick cake and the rim top/inner edge had thick lava flowing up from the bowl. It appears that there is damage on the back side of the inner edge. It was hard to know its full condition with certainty until it was cleaned. The vulcanite taper stem is was dirty, oxidized, calcified and had tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. There was the inlaid Dunhill White Spot on the top of the stem. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his clean up work on it. He took photos of the bowl and rim top to show the thickness of the cake and the darkening and lava overflow on the rim top. There were also nicks around the outer edge of the bowl. The photos of the stem show the oxidation, calcification and tooth marks and chatter on the surface on both sides. The photos of the sides and heel of the bowl show the great grain on the pipe. It is a beauty under the grime and dust. The stamping on the underside of the shank is shown in the photos below. It looks very good and readable. It reads as noted and explained above. The third photo shows the white spot on the stem. I turned to Pipedia’s section on Dunhill Bruyere Pipes to get a bit of background on the Dunhill finishes (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill#Root_Briar). I quote:

Bruyere

The original finish produced (usually made using Calabrian briar), and a big part of developing and marketing the brand. It was the only finish from 1910 until 1917. A dark reddish-brown stain. Before the 1950s, there were three possible finishes for Dunhill pipes. The Bruyere was a smooth finish with a deep red stain, obtained through two coats, a brown understain followed by a deep red.

There was a link on the above site to a section specifically written regarding the Bruyere finish (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Dunhill_Bruyere). I turned there and have included the information from that short article below.

Initially, made from over century-old briar burls, classified by a “B” (denoted highest quality pipe); “DR” (denoted straight-grained) and an “A” (denoted first quality), until early 1915. After that, they became a high-end subset to the Dunhill ‘Bruyere’. The DR and B pipes, a limited production, they should be distinguished as hand-cut in London from burls as opposed to the Bruyere line which was generally finished from French turned bowls until 1917, when the Calabrian briar started to be used, but not completely. Only in 1920 Dunhill took the final step in its pipe making operation and began sourcing and cutting all of its own bowls, proudly announcing thereafter that “no French briar was employed”.

Bruyere pipes were usually made using Calabrian briar, a very dense and hardy briar that has a modest grain but does very well with the deep red stain.

“Before the 1950s, there were three possible finishes for Dunhill pipes. The Bruyere was a smooth finish with a deep red stain, obtained through two coats, a brown understain followed by a deep red. The Shell finish was the original sandblast with a near-black stain (though the degree to which it is truly black has varied over the years). Lastly, the Root finish was smooth also but with a light brown finish. Early Dunhill used different briars with different stains, resulting in more distinct and identifiable creations… Over the years, to these traditional styles were added four new finishes: Cumberland, Dress, Chestnut and Amber Root, plus some now-defunct finishes, such as County, Russet and Red Bark.”

There was also a link to a catalogue page that gave examples and dates that the various finishes were introduced (https://pipedia.org/wiki/File:Dunnypipescatalog-1.png). I turned to Pipephil’s dating guide to show how I arrived at the date of manufacture for this pipe (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/dunhill/cledat-en1a.html). I am including the chart that is provided there for the dating a pipe. I have drawn a red box around the section. Since the pipe I am working on has a suffix 14 it points to the 1960 line on the chart below. I have drawn a red box around the pertinent section in the chart.On Pipedia they also have an ODA shape chart that was helpful. I have included that below (https://pipedia.org/wiki/A_DUNHILL_ODA_SHAPE_CHART).I now knew that I was working on a Bruyere that came out in 1974. The shape of the pipe is a Panel Billiard that Dunhill put out and that the #ODA 836 was a normal Panel Billiard shape with a taper stem.

I turned to work on the pipe itself. Jeff had carried out his usual thorough cleanup of the pipe. He had reamed it with a PipNet reamer to remove the cake and cleaned the reaming up 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 scrubbed it down with Soft Scrub All-Purpose cleaner to remove any oxidation that was still on the stem. The pipe looked very clean when I received it though a light oxidation still remained on the stem surface. I took a photo of the rim top. Jeff had been able to remove the thick lava coat from the rim top and inner edge. There is some darkening and burn damage on the back inner edge and rim top and a burn spot on the front top and inner edge. The stem is clean but has some oxidation remaining on each end (ahead of the white spot and ahead of the button). There was also oxidation on the tapered sides of the stem.I took photos of the stamping on the right and the left side of the shank. It is clear and readable as noted above. I took a photo of the pipe with the stem removed to get a sense of what the pipe looked like. It is quite a large bowl. I started my work on the pipe by addressing the burn damage on the inner edge of the rim and the rim top. I worked on the darkening on the inner edge with a folded piece of 220 grit sandpaper to start the process. I worked on the burnt spot on the front top and the inner edge on the back top. I then used a wooden ball and a piece of 220 grit sandpaper to give the inner edge a slight bevel to hide the damage on the edges. I finished by working on it once again with a folded piece of sandpaper to smooth and shape it a bit more. I polished the briar with micromesh sanding pads – dry sanding it with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped the bowl down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth to remove the dust and debris from the surface of the briar. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the surface of the briar with my fingertips. The product works to clean, preserve and protect the briar. I let it sit and work into the briar for 10 minutes then wiped it off with a cotton cloth. I buffed the briar with a clean cloth. The bowl is starting to look beautiful and there is a shine developing. I set the bowl aside and turned my attention to the stem. The tooth marks were very light and shallow so I moved immediately to sanding it with micromesh sanding pads. I wet sanded the stem with 1500-2400 grit pads to remove the remaining oxidation on both ends and the tooth chatter ahead of the button. I dry sanded it with 3200-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads. I wiped the stem down after each pad with some Obsidian Oil. I finished the hand polishing of the stem with Before & After Pipe Polish – both the Fine and Extra Fine polishes. I gave it a final coat of oil and set it aside to dry.I put the Dunhill Bruyere ODA 836 Panel Billiard bowl and stem back together. I polished the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond to polish out the scratches in the briar and the vulcanite. I gave the bowl and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The reddish/brown stains worked amazingly well with the polished vulcanite taper stem. The grain around the bowl and shank and looks quite remarkable. This is truly a beautiful Dunhill Bruyere Panel Billiard ODA 836 pipe. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 6 inches, Height: 2 inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ½ inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.62 ounces/46 grams. I will be putting it on the rebornpipes store shortly in the British Pipemakers Section. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me. Cheers.

Barontini Straight Grain B3 Hand Made Freehand with a Variegated Orange Acrylic Stem

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Blog by Steve Laug

This quiet Sunday afternoon I decided to continue working on the lot. I chose to work on the smooth Barontini Freehand (possibly a Rhodesian). The Barontinis I have worked on generally are nice looking pieces of briar and have had acrylic stems. This one had a nicely grained finish and a plateau style rim top. The pipe is stamped around the sides of the bowl. It was clear and readable. On the left side it reads Barontini [over] Straight Grain. On the right side it is stamped with a B3 and vertically next to the stem it is stamped Italy. On the underside of the shank it reads Fatta [over] A Mano. The stamping is clear and readable. The medium brown stained finish was very dirty but seemed to have a shellac coat over the whole bowl and shank. The bowl had a thick cake and the plateau style rim top/inner edge had thick lava flowing up from the bowl filling in the grooves. The inner edge of the bowl was covered enough with lava that it was hard to know its condition with certainty. The saddle stem is variegated orange and cream acrylic and was dirty and had tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. There was an inlaid logo dot on the top of the stem. It was a red dot encircled with silver. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his clean up work on it. Jeff took photos of the bowl and rim top to show what they looked like before the clean up. You can see the thick cake in the bowl overflowing as lava on the inner edge and rim top. He also took some photos of the stem to show the condition of both sides. You can see the tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside next to the button. The photos of the sides and heel of the bowl show the beautiful grain around the bowl and shank. The stain adds depth finish on the pipe. Even under the grime it is a real beauty. The stamping on the sides of the shank are shown in the photos below. It is clear and readable as noted above. I looked up some information on the brand on the Pipephil website to get a quick overview of the history (http://www.pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-b2.html). I did a screen capture of the listing for the brand. The fascinating thing that I learned in this quick overview was the connection to the entire Barontini family and to other companies like Aldo Velani. It is interesting to see the breadth of the brand in the following screen capture.Pipedia gives further history of the brand (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Barontini,_Cesare). It is a very brief article with little information. I quote that article in full below.

In 1890 Turildo Barontini opened a factory for the production of briar. In 1925 his son Bruno began to produce the first pipes. Cesare Barontini, son of Bruno, started direction of the factory in 1955, and still runs it together with his daughters Barbara and Silvia.

Unfortunately, on neither site was there any pertinent information on the Barontini Straight Grain pipe. I decided to do a quick google search and found a listing for what appears to be the actual pipe I am working on (https://pipes.collectionhero.com/outer/view_item.php?id=55163). I include that information and photo below. Looks like the fellow I purchased the pipe from purchased it from this auction potentially? He got it for a steal at that price as they tend to run between $90 and $120 online. I guess I will never know for sure but at least I found the pipe online. It is now time to work on the pipe itself.

Jeff had reamed the bowl with a PipNet pipe reamer and followed up with a Savinelli Fitsall pipe knife to remove the cake. He scrubbed out the mortise and the airway in the shank and the stem with alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He scrubbed the exterior of the bowl, rim, shank and stem with a tooth brush and Murphy’s Oil Soap to remove the oils and tars on the rim and the grime on the finish of the bowl. He rinsed it under running water. He dried it off with a soft cloth. The rim was thoroughly cleaned and the damaged areas were obvious. Without the grime the finish looked really good. The Lucite stem would need to be worked on but I really like the profile it cast. I took photos of the pipe to show its condition before I started my work on it. I took close up photos of both the rim top and the stem. Jeff had been able to get the grime and lava off of the rim top and it looked very clean. The stem looked very clean. The tooth marks and chatter were predominantly near the button.The stamping on the sides of the shank was readable as noted above. I took photos of the stamping to show the condition and readability. I took a photo of the pipe with the stem removed to give an idea of the perspective and design of the pipe. I scrubbed the carved plateau rim top of the bowl with a brass bristle wire brush to remove the remaining darkening and debris in the nooks and crannies of the rim top. It looked much better once I finished.I wiped down the bowl with acetone to remove the shiny coat. It barely broke through the coat. I wiped it down repeatedly and then moved on to the micromesh pads. I polished bowl with micromesh sanding pads using 1500-12000 grit sanding pads and wiping it down after each sanding pad with a pad and acetone to remove the sanding dust and debris from the finish. I paused the polishing after the 4000 grit micromesh sanding pad to stain the lighter spots on the bowl and shank. I used an Oak Stain Pen to match the colour of the rest of the bowl and shank. The colour was a perfect match. I touched up the light spots on the shank end, the rim cap and spots around the bowl sides. It looks much better. I finished polishing it with 6000-12000 grit micromesh sanding pads. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the finish of the bowl and shank with my fingers and into the plateau carved rim top with a horsehair shoe brush. I want the product to go deep into the finish because it works to clean, enliven and protect the briar. Once I was confident that it was deeply worked into the finish I wiped it off and buffed it with a soft cloth to polish it. The pipe really began to have a rich shine. I took some photos of the bowl at this point to mark the progress in the restoration. The grain really stands out on the pipe in the photos below. I set the bowl aside and turned to work on the stem. I sanded the surface of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper to remove the tooth marks and chatter. I started polishing the acrylic stem with a folded piece of 600 grit wet dry sandpaper.I polished the stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad. I know many think it is useless to use the Obsidian Oil on acrylic stems but I find that it is a good lubricant when I am sanding with the micromesh pads. For me it works! I finished the hand polishing of the stem with Before & After Pipe Polish – both the Fine and Extra Fine polishes. I gave it a final coat of oil and set it aside to dry.I put the Barontini Straight Graini B3 bowl and stem back together. I polished the smooth part of the bowl and stem with Blue Diamond to polish out the scratches in the briar and the vulcanite. I gave the sandblasted bowl and shank several coats of Conservator’s Wax and the stem multiple coats of carnauba wax. I buffed the pipe with a clean buffing pad to raise the shine. I hand buffed it with a microfiber cloth to deepen the shine. The pipe polished up pretty nicely. The medium brown stains worked amazingly well with the polished orange acrylic stem. The grain around the bowl and shank and looks quite remarkable. This is truly a beautiful Barontini Straight Grain Freehand pipe. The finished pipe is shown in the photos below. The dimensions of the pipe are Length: 5 ½ inches, Height: 2 ¼ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 1/8 inches, Chamber diameter: 7/8 of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 1.76 ounces/51 grams. I will be putting it on the rebornpipes store shortly in the Italian Pipemakers Section. Thanks for walking through the restoration with me. Cheers.

New Life for a Ser Jacopo Delecta Octagonal Bent Billiard with a Black Acrylic Saddle Stem

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Blog by Steve Laug

This evening after work I decided to continue working on the lot. I chose to work on the smooth octagonal bent Billiard with a silver ferrule and tip on the stem. It has a classic Large Bent Octagonal Billiard shape with an Italian twist. The is smooth and well shaped. There is a silver ferrule round the shank end as well as a silver band around the tenon end of the stem. The pipe is stamped on three sides of the shank. On the left side it Ser Jacopo [over] Fatta A Mano (made by hand). On the underside of the shank it is stamped Delecta. The stamping on the right side of the shank it read Per Aspera [over] Ad Astra. The silver ferrule is stamped on the top left side and reads Ser [over] Jacopo [over] Delecta. On the underside it is stamped 925 in an oval as the silver quality designation. There is a coral dot logo is on top side of the stem. The stamping is clear and readable. The reddish stained finish was very dirty with grime ground into the smooth briar. The bowl had a moderate cake and the rim top/inner edge had some lava flowing up from the bowl. The inner edge of the bowl was covered with some lava so it was hard to know its condition with certainty. The stem is black acrylic fancy saddle stem and was dirty with tooth marks and chatter on both sides ahead of the button. The silver ferrule and tenon end were oxidized and dirty. Jeff took photos of the pipe before he started his clean up work on it. Jeff took photos of the bowl and rim top to show what they looked like before the clean up. You can see the cake in the bowl overflowing on the inner edge rim top. He also took some photos of the stem to show the condition of both sides. You can see the tooth marks and chatter on the top and underside next to the button. The photos of the sides and heel of the bowl show the grain around the bowl and shank. The stain adds depth finish on the pipe. Even under the grime it is a real beauty. The stamping on the sides of the shank and on the silver ferrule is shown in the photos below. It is clear and readable as noted above. I turned to Pipephil (http://pipephil.eu/logos/en/logo-s5.html) to remind myself of the background of the brand. I also wanted to see what the single Coral dot meant on the stem. I knew that the Coral dot was on the older pipes but that was all I knew. I include a screen capture of the section on the brand below. The third photo below shows a similar Coral dot on the stem.I am also including the information that I found there in the sidebar on PipePhil. I quote that below. I have highlighted the R2 designation below in red.

Founder of the brand in 1982: Giancarlo Guidi (1943 – †2012). Production (2006): ~ 6000 pipes/year. Ser Jacopo seconds: Gepetto.

Finish mark: Rusticated pipes: R1 (dark brown) R2 (light brown); Sandblasted pipes: S (black), S1 (dark brown), S2 (light brown), S3 (tanshell); Smooth pipes: L (red), L1 (acceptable grain), L2 (nice grain), L3 (exceptional grain).

I then turned to Pipedia (https://pipedia.org/wiki/Ser_Jacopo) to read some more about the brand and see if there were more details regarding the single Coral dot. I quote below.

Ser Jacopo (provided by Marble Arch Ltd., US importer and distributor of Ser Jacopo)

Smokingpipes.com has an excellent concise history available on their website Ser Jacopo History at Smoking Pipes.com

Ser Jacopo, better to say Ser Jacopo dalla Gemma, was started by Giancarlo Guidi in 1982 upon leaving Mastro de Paja.

Giancarlo Guidi and Bruto Sordini broke away from Mastro de Paja in 1981 in pursuit of their own company. Ser Jacopo was named after an Italian nobleman. Guidi and Sordini, having taken part in creating the now infamous Pesaro “school” of pipe making, wanted to expand further. To accomplish this, Ser Jacopo focused their efforts on the pairing of the briar with a seemingly endless variety of mounts. Through the use of precious metals and stones, horn, and exotic woods Ser Jacopo pipes are given unique characters that many collectors find quite aesthetically pleasing. Although Ser Jacopo pipes borrow heavily from classical shapes, they are indeed quite unique in style.

In addition to creative mountings, Ser Jacopo is also well known for making themed pipes, and the most famous of these themes is perhaps the Picta Series, where pipes are modeled after pipes seen in pictures by and of famous artists, such as Vincent Van Gough.

Ser Jacopo makes multiple grades of pipes, with the “entry” level being the Geppetto brand, and the highest grade being the “Gem” series.

The small Ser Jacopo shop produces approximately 6000 pipes per year. The pipes are known for using outstanding Italian briar, which is well seasoned. The pipes have earned a well-deserved reputation for having excellent smoking qualities, equal or better than any other fine Italian pipe maker (or, for that matter, any other pipe maker in the world).

Giancarlo Guidi passed away on August 6, 2012, leaving behind a great legacy. He was 64 years old.

Nomenclature – the section on the nomenclature helps understand the stamping on the sides of the shank. It is helpful and really quite interesting.

The standard nomenclature found on Ser Jacopo pipes is as follows:

Ser Jacopo Fatta A Mano In Italia Per Aspera Ad Astra – Fatta A Mano translates to “Made By Hand”. Per Aspera Ad Astra is a Latin phrase found on Ser Jacopo pipes and is the Ser Jacopo motto. It translates to “To the Stars Through Travails”, meaning that success comes through hard work. In the Summer 1997 Pipes and Tobaccos article Giancarlo Guidi translated this as “through a difficult way until the stars are reached”.

Ser Jacopo Pipes are generally found in one of three finishes (rusticated, sandblast, smooth) designated by a letter and number code:

R1: Rusticated, dark brown or plum finish.

R2: Rusticated, light brown finish.

S: Sandblast, black

S1: Sandblast, dark brown

S2: Sandblast, light brown

S3: Sandblast, tanshell

L: Smooth, red, usually with silver trim

L1: Smooth, flame grain, various finishes

L2: Smooth, straight grain, various finishes

L3: Smooth, straight grain extra, discontinued

Dating Pipes

In the photo to the left you can see the development of the stem inserts on the pipes.

Top: Early Red Coral Logo Middle: Coral Logo with Silver Ring Bottom: Modern Day Silver J Logo – Courtesy of Mike Ahmadi

Ser Jacopo pipes is somewhat difficult, because Ser Jacopo does not generally use date codes (the exception being the Diamond Gemma series pipes, which are dated coded). Early pipes (from 1983 to 1997) featured a red coral dot on the mouthpiece, sometimes found encircled in a silver ring. This was discontinued and changed to a sterling silver letter “J”. On the Gemma series of pipes, the mouthpiece logo is a precious stone surrounded by an 18k gold ring.

The pipe I am working on is one of the early pipes (1983-1997) with a coral dot in the top of the saddle stem. It is a lovely pipe with an L Red finish and silver trim. Now it is time to work on the pipe and bring it back to life.

Armed with that information I turned to work on the pipe itself. Before he sent it to me, Jeff had done an amazing job cleaning the pipe. It almost looked like a different pipe after his work. He reamed the pipe with a PipNet pipe reamer and removed the rest of the cake with a Savinelli Fitsall Pipe Knife. He scrubbed the bowl with undiluted Murphy’s Oil Soap and a tooth brush. He rinsed it under running warm water to remove the soap and grime. The finish looked very good and the rugged finish felt good in the hand. He cleaned out the inside of the shank and the airway in the stem with isopropyl alcohol, cotton swabs and pipe cleaners. He soaked the stem in Briarville’s Pipe Stem Deoxidizer and then rinsed it off with warm water. He scrubbed the stem with Soft Scrub and a tooth brush and rinsed it off with warm water. It looked good when I took it out of the package of pipes he shipped me. There were some shiny spots on the finish where the shellac coat had not all come off. It would need to be removed to even it out. I took photos of the pipe before I started my part of the restoration work. I took close up photos of both the rim top and the stem. Jeff had been able to get the grime and lava off of the rim top and it looked very clean. You can see the spotty shellac coat that still remains on the bowl and rim top. The stem looked very clean. The tooth marks and chatter were much less than on the previous pipes in this collection and they were predominantly near the button. They should be easy to remove. The stamping on the sides of the shank was readable as noted above. I took photos of the stamping on each side to show the condition and readability. I also took a photo of the pipe with the stem removed to give an idea of the perspective and design of the pipe. To deal with the spotty coat of shellac on the bowl and shank I used a cotton pad and alcohol to wipe down the briar. I was able to remove the shellac coat completely and the grain really showed through. Here is what it looks like at this point in the process. I polished the smooth bowl and rim top with micromesh sanding pads using 1500-12000 grit sanding pads and wiping it down after each sanding pad with a damp cloth to remove the sanding dust and debris. I worked some Before & After Restoration Balm into the finish of the bowl and shank with my fingers. I want the product to go deep into the finish because it works to clean, enliven and protect the briar. Once I was confident that it was deeply worked into the finish I wiped it off and buffed it with a soft cloth to polish it. The pipe really began to have a rich shine. I took some photos of the bowl at this point to mark the progress in the restoration. The grain really stands out on the pipe in the photos below. I set the bowl aside and turned to work on the stem. I sanded out the tooth marks in the acrylic surface of the stem with 220 grit sandpaper and started the polishing with a folded piece of 600 grit wet dry sandpaper.I polished the vulcanite stem with micromesh sanding pads – wet sanding it with 1500-12000 grit pads. I wiped it down with Obsidian Oil after each sanding pad.I polished it with Before & After Pipe Polish – both the Fine and Extra Fine polishes. I gave it a final coat of oil and set it aside to dry. This Ser Jacopo Delecta Octagonal Bent Billiard with Silver Ferrule and an acrylic saddle stem is a great looking pipe now that it has been restored. The beautiful finish really highlights the grain and the polished finish is stunning. The Silver Ferrule and Silver tenon space is also a great addition. I put the stem back on the bowl and carefully buffed the pipe with Blue Diamond on the buffing wheel. I gave the bowl 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 Ser Jacopo Delecta Octagonal Bent Billiard 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 ½ inches, Height: 2 ½ inches, Outside diameter of the bowl: 1 ¼ inches, Chamber diameter: ¾ of an inch. The weight of the pipe is 87 grams /3.03 ounces. I will be adding the pipe to the Italian Pipe Makers Section of the rebornpipes store. If you are interested in purchasing this pipe send me a message or an email. Thanks for reading this blog and my reflections on the pipe while I worked on it.

Dipping a Toe into the Murky Waters of the BP Jum

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by Kenneth Lieblich

Next on the chopping block is a robust, rugged, rusticated pipe which I acquired in a lot of pipes from a gentleman living on Vancouver Island. He had quite an assortment of pipes and they ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime. This is not a Custom-Bilt – it is a BP Jum. They could easily be mistaken for one another. This is a very handsome pipe and promises to be a great smoker. It’s a bent pot (or a “War Club”, as Steve calls it), with a vulcanite, wide saddle stem. And what a wonderful rustication on this one! On the left side of the shank, the markings read BP Jum [over] Imported Briar. These are the only markings.The history of BP Jum, like many pipes of the same era, is shrouded in some mystery. The brand name has no mention on either Pipedia or Pipephil. Some pipe folks have proposed that BP Jum pipes are, in fact, Custom-Bilt seconds, but there is no direct evidence to support this. In previous restorations that Steve has done, he wrote the following: “There was a lot of conjecture as to whether the brand was made by Tracy Mincer of Custombilt fame. There is no definitive proof other than the common shapes, sizes and look of the pipes. Bill Unger, of Custombilt fame and author of a history of the brand, mentions BP Jum but cannot definitively connect the two. So the maker remains a mystery that is still unsolved.”

Well, I’ve taken up the mantle to see what else could be found. A gentleman who commented on one of Steve’s restorations said “BP Jum pipes are shown in a 1971 Kentucky club premiums [sic] catalog I have. They are not labeled in the text but I can see it stamped on shank of the picture of the pipe. The rustication on these is also very telling and looks the same on most of them.” I took it upon myself to see if I could find photos of the 1971 Kentucky Club Premium Catalog. I did find some online, but the images did not include the page with the BP Jums that were mentioned. Alas.Another potential source is a fellow named Tom, who goes by the handle, NWPipesmoker, on YouTube. As a devoted fan of both Custom-Bilt and BP Jum pipes, he has a few videos speculating on the origins of BP Jum pipes. In one video, he quotes from an unnamed correspondent of his who says that the BP Jum name comes from “Bilmore Pipes Jumbo”. Now, it is important to stress that there is only circumstantial evidence to support this. The information is enticing, but no more than indirect. The advertisement below (for Biltmore) displays some drawings of pipes that are very close (or identical) to BP Jum pipes. We don’t see the words “BP Jum” anywhere on the pipes or in the ad, but I am still impressed with this.As an aside, the connection between Tracy Mincer’s Custom-Bilt and Biltmore is circuitous, to be sure, but it exists. Briefly, both Bilmore pipes and Mincer pipes (specifically the Doodler) were either owned by or produced by National Briar Pipe Co. of New Jersey. In Bill Unger’s book, As Individual as a Thumbprint: The Custom-Bilt Pipe Story, he writes: “Apparently, both Tracy Mincer and the National Briar Pipe Co. continued to produce Doodlers concurrently until Mincer was no longer able to make pipes, sometime before his death in 1964. Bill Mincer then sold all rights to the Doodler to the National Pipe Co. in 1966.”Finally, NWPipesmoker has another video where he compares two pipes that he owns: one marked “Custom-Bilt” and the other marked “BP Jum”. He has entitled this video, “CustomBilt and BP Jum connection confirmed”. I think that’s overstating it a bit, but I am including the link to this video here, for your examination: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdsBYoydYu8

It is certainly possible (and perhaps even likely) that Custom-Bilt and BP Jum pipes are related in some way – even if we are not able to make a definitive statement about it. I feel comfortable in saying that there is a connection between the pipes, but this connection is not ironclad. To put it colloquially, they may be brothers but they are not twins.

Let’s move on…

This pipe had been well-loved and well-smoked, as it arrived with some marks and general wear. The stem was dirty and had lots of dents and tooth marks. Most of the stummel was in decent shape, but the rim was pretty nasty – the were burns and lava, and the rustication grooves were full of gunk. I took up the stem and cleaned it off with Murphy’s Oil Soap. It was quite dirty and needed some scrubbing. Following that, I used pipe cleaners and lemon-infused isopropyl alcohol to clean out the internals of the stem. As you can see, there was much muck to be removed! Next, I wiped down the stem with some SoftScrub cleanser and then put the stem in my container of deoxidizing fluid. This works to draw the oxidation to the surface of the stem, so that it can be cleaned off again with more SoftScrub. With the stem nice and clean, I needed to address the damage to the stem. To achieve this, I applied a type of black cyanoacrylate adhesive (impregnated with carbon and rubber) to the damaged area. I sprayed these areas with an accelerant to cure the adhesive immediately. I then had to shape these repairs so that they would look great! I began by taking a needle file and shaping the hardened adhesive. Continuing, I used 200- and 400-grit sandpapers on the repairs to smooth them out. I finished up by using all nine of my MicroMesh pads to sand the entire stem. I also used some pipe stem oil to assist with the sanding and protect the vulcanite.Having put aside the stem, I moved on to the charming, chunky stummel. First on the agenda was to ream out the bowl, as it was full of cake. The PipNet reamer made short work of this, and I followed up by sanding the walls down with some 220-grit sandpaper attached to a wooden dowel. This revealed a tiny bit of damage to interior wall – but this would be easily fixed.Next on the list, I thoroughly cleaned out the shank. Using a combination of Q-tips and pipe cleaners dipped in lemon-infused isopropyl alcohol, I removed all the awful filth in there. The photo shows a mere portion of the cotton used. As the girls in the 80s used to say, grody to the max!I always like to ameliorate the cleaning of the stummel by performing a “de-ghosting” on the stummel. I placed some cotton balls in the bowl and the mortise of the shank, then saturated them with straight isopropyl alcohol. I let this sit overnight while the oils and tars (and evil spirits) leeched into the cotton.I broke out the Murphy’s again and wiped down the outside with some cotton rounds. Once I felt the outside was clean, I then took out my two brushes and castile soap and washed both the inside and outside. The internals were lovely and clean after that – but there were still some issues on that rim.Even though I’d used both a toothbrush and a wire brush on the rim, there was still some filth to be dealt with – not to mention some burning. I began by “topping” the pipe – in other words, I placed the top of the pipe, level and flat, on a piece of 220-grit sandpaper and gently ground it down to smooth and even out the rim. The rim still required a bit more beautification. I took a small piece of sandpaper and evened out some rough parts that topping wasn’t able to address.I then went “next level” insane. I took a dental tool and individually excavated each groove on the rim to remove the crud. It took awhile, but the results were worth it.In order to address the burns, I dissolved some oxalic acid crystals in some hot water. Then, taking a Q-tip and tipping it in the acid, I rubbed and rubbed and rubbed until it removed most of the burning that was there. It didn’t all come off (it rarely does), but was much improved. Once I was satisfied with that, the finishing sanding was next, so I took all nine of my MicroMesh pads and sanded the whole stummel until it was super-smooth and handsome. The pipe had benefitted from a lot of work, but this wore out the colour of the wood. I decided to restain the pipe. First, I brought out my heat gun and spent a couple of minutes thoroughly heating the wood, so it would be as receptive as possible to the stain. I wanted the stain to penetrate well into the wood, to give the best results. I applied Fiebing’s Light Brown Leather Dye with a cotton dauber. I flamed it with my Bic lighter, let it set, then coated it again with dye, flamed it again, and let that set too. I decided to let the pipe sit overnight. This dye is alcohol-based, so I used isopropyl alcohol to wipe down the pipe and remove excess stain. I am very happy with the results.Earlier, I referred to a little hairline crack emanating from the draught hole. Steve recommended repairing it some pipe mud. This is made by mixing cigar ash (not pipe ash) with the merest bit of water to create a paste. I then applied the paste with a tiny spatula and let it set until dry. I then gently sanded it down. Later, I added some Before & After Restoration Balm to the stummel. This does good things to wood, enhances the grain, and brings out some lustre. Then it was off for a trip to the buffer. I applied a few coats of Conservator’s Wax and the pipe really popped. The lovely shine made the wood very attractive. This is a very handsome pipe and will provide many years of smoking pleasure.This BP Jum is much improved and is ready to be enjoyed again by the next owner. I am pleased to announce that this pipe is for sale! If you are interested in acquiring it for your collection, please have a look in the American pipe section of the store here on Steve’s website. You can also email me directly at kenneth@knightsofthepipe.com. The approximate dimensions of the pipe are as follows: length 5⅜ in. (137 mm); height 1⅝ in. (41 mm); bowl diameter 1⅞ in. (48 mm); chamber diameter ⅞ in. (24 mm). The weight of the pipe is 2⅛ oz. (61 g). I hope you enjoyed reading the story of this pipe’s restoration as much as I did restoring it. If you are interested in more of my work, please follow me here on Steve’s website or send me an email. Thank you very much for reading and, as always, I welcome and encourage your comments.