Ben Wade Freehands....what's good or sought after?

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free_byrd15

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My local B and M has a guy selling off all his pipes and there are about 10 Ben Wades and I was wondering if any of his work is more sought after than others?
 
Can't comment on the freehands, but the Golden Walnut and Royal Grain are a couple of the better lines. Punch in and search the Ben Wade history, they changed hands at some point, I think Charatan bought them out, then the Ben Wade name was used by Preben Holm. You'd have to know the markings to date them,,,,sounds like a great opportunity to pick up a great pipe or two.
 
The Ben Wade freehands marked "Made in Denmark" were all made by Preben Holm, as far as I know.

They had several designations, such as "Danish Hand Model" 100, 200, ??? and a bunch of others including Golden Walnut, Fancy, and Crown, I think.


5-6 years ago they were all selling at premium prices ($200-300)on Ebay to about 8 people. The ones stamped "Preben Holm" went for much more. Rob Cooper had sort of cornered the market on anything Preben Holm and did a grand job of romancing the brand.

I remember one estate Preben Holm going for over $900, and it had a hole in the front wall of the tobacco chamber where the maker had overshot just a little when he drilled the smoke hole!

The bloom is off that rose now.

Rad
 
I have several Preben Holm Ben Wades and I have one Preben Holm mark. I have sold several as well. They are great smoking pipes! I had most of mine restored by Mike Brissett whose moniker on here is Pipemaker.

Rad was right in saying the bloom is off the rose. They don't well quite as well as they did say 5-10 years ago but still a good acquisition if you can get a hold of them. The better ones that I have are the Matiniques, Golden Walnuts, Danish Hand Models and ones marked Preben Holm. I have a Preben Holm Crown that is in near unsmoked condition.

Preben Holm was the precurser to today's Danish Carvers and I believe that he would be the man so to speak had he not met an untimely death at 42 years old in the 80's. Poul Winslow is one of Preben Holm's contemporaries and a lot of his work reflects it. If I am not mistaken Winslow has a line out now that is sort of a tribute to Holm's early work.
 
The original Ben Wade had a workshop making pipes in Leeds, England. A German bomb took that out during WWII ; their lathe and trademark were bought by Charatan (which had considered them their only real competition while they were in business).

Their pipes tend to be on the small side (as many of not most were back then). Marty Pulvers was coming up with an occasional handful of them a while ago, which he was getting from a birddog in Leeds who was picking them up in antiques stores.

:face:
 
I have one Ben Wade Freehand. Ben Wade stamped in cursive with AUTUMN
stamped under that in large block, HAND MADE IN DENMARK under that in small block. Has stellar grain and great plateu rim, but it gurgles as soon as I put the charring light on it. Keep in mind I am still a novice pipe smoker, and there is a good chance that gurgle is due to operator error.
 
Bulldog Bruce":fj5tn84q said:
I have one Ben Wade Freehand. Ben Wade stamped in cursive with AUTUMN
stamped under that in large block, HAND MADE IN DENMARK under that in small block. Has stellar grain and great plateu rim, but it gurgles as soon as I put the charring light on it. Keep in mind I am still a novice pipe smoker, and there is a good chance that gurgle is due to operator error.
As Rad said Bruce, the ones marked made in Denmark were made in the Preben Holm shop. I have heard that the original Ben Wade company from England was part of the venture with Preben Holm in Denmark and that is how Holm's pipes came to have the Ben Wade name on them. I have never owned an English Ben Wade but I understand them to be outstanding pipes.
 
I wasn't even aware Ben Wades were originaly made in England until reading Yaks above post, which he was sending @ the same time I was trying to send mine. I think I nead more pipe history books than I currently have and this is a perfect example to show SHMBO the reason why.

Bd
 
1. Bruce just pick out two books.. One titled something like 'A womans place is in the kitchen: How women lost their role.' And any one of the pipe books.. :D I bet she persuades you to study pipes. :D Don't however try that with Hustler and Pipes & Tobacco subscriptions.. That just gets ya smacked :D

2. I'm out of my element with this brand but I think Winslows 'Crown' line is the one that Yaks refering to. My second ever pipe was a Crown 100, it was a fine pipe.
 
i've seen the golden walnut, autumn, and crown in the mix of estate pipes. I'll have to check back soon to see it there are any others mentioned. He's asking anywhere from 100 to 150 for em. They are smoked, not heavily, but definitely smoked.
 
Justpipes":av2b6ew0 said:
As Rad said Bruce, the ones marked made in Denmark were made in the Preben Holm shop. I have heard that the original Ben Wade company from England was part of the venture with Preben Holm in Denmark and that is how Holm's pipes came to have the Ben Wade name on them. I have never owned an English Ben Wade but I understand them to be outstanding pipes.
From what I've heard, Preben Holm was not a brilliant businessman, and he somehow lost the right to use his own name through a bankruptcy proceeding or something like that.

He then cut a deal to make freehand pipes under the Ben Wade name.

Rad
 
Also, how can you tell if it is an original Ben Wade as mentioned above, ie in the factory before it was blown up.
 
Rad Davis":d1og7w2p said:
From what I've heard, Preben Holm was not a brilliant businessman, and he somehow lost the right to use his own name through a bankruptcy proceeding or something like that.

He then cut a deal to make freehand pipes under the Ben Wade name.

Rad
I have heard the same thing about Preben Holm's business savy but I didn't know the exact story of how he came to use the Ben Wade mark. I just knew that the English Ben Wade company was involved with Preben Holm for something similar to what you posted.

Actually I have recently looked at the current English Ben Wade line and they are pretty darn nice pipes for the money. Same with the current Hardcastle line.
 
free_byrd15":ktbwwu8z said:
how can you tell if it is an original Ben Wade as mentioned above, ie in the factory before it was blown up.
You're talking about pipes made between maybe the early 1900s and 1944. Group 2-3 size smooth classic shapes. No this series or that series, no freehands --none of that.

If you fool with eBay, make it a long-term project to search for "Leeds." Assuming it's not a fake, any Ben Wade marked "Made in Leeds, England"will be an original. If it's not, it isn't. Their markings varied according to the grade of the pipe.

It's a PITA posting an image here. If you're that interested, send me a PM with your e-mail address, and I'll send you a photo of their top-shelf name stamping.

:face:
 
Ok, so I found one that was made in London, England. Its called an Ovation and also has a 284 on it. Can anyone shed some light on this?

thanks
 
Smoking Pipes has a couple of Ben Wade/Preben Holm pipes in their current estate pipes section. Both pipes have a bit of historical content about this subject; including how PH lost the rights to sell pipes under his name. :pipe: FTRPLT
 
I did a quick search on both there, but couldn't find the info. you reference.

As I recall, he got into a "situation" with a US importer and decided to change to another one. The first importer may or may not have had contractual trademark rights to his name in the US (?), but he did have a large stock of his (unsold) pipes.

Relations between them having been somewhat less than amicable ones, if PH would have started shipping "Preben Holms" to a competitor, said importer would have "dumped" his PHs on to the market at break-even prices and bad-mouth raps, torpedoing PH. So his subsequent US pipes came over as something-elses.

Not gospel -- just what I read somewhere once.

:face:
 
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