Can you tell me anything about this?

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bigmick

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Picked up a new to me pipe today. Lightly used, a small few fills in the bowl, but overall pretty nice. $14 was well spent I think. Bottom of the shank says "Made in London England". No other markings. Any clues for me from you experts?

pipe.jpg
 
"Made in London England" is a very popular brand. I have a few myself, like this one:

Couldn't tell you anything about it, except that it's a great pipe. Smokes great, looks great, makes me feel like a million bucks!
 
The similarities are striking,......the colors of yours and mine are much closer than these two hastily made photos reveal. My pipe is actually pretty dark.

Mine is a "Sasiene" "4Dot" "Rough Root Dark" made in the 1980's "London Briar" "Made in London". The stem logo is four symetrical sky blue dots in a diamond;

Wish I could be more help.



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In the grand scheme I suppose it matters little. As long as it smokes good. It's a shape I have been attracted to. I'll smoke it this week after it drys from the cleaning I gave it. No cake to deal with, but it was dirty and needed disinfecting.
 
Hey Tommy, that is a killer Sasieni! Very nice photos too. Well done!
 
bigmick":1b4wcpbo said:
Picked up a new to me pipe today. Lightly used, a small few fills in the bowl, but overall pretty nice. $14 was well spent I think. Bottom of the shank says "Made in London England". No other markings. Any clues for me from you experts?

pipe.jpg
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Mick, get an engraver to put "BigMick" on that pipe and it will have a worthy name!!

Cheers

Pieter
 
SpeedyPete":fid9qydv said:
Mick, get an engraver to put "BigMick" on that pipe and it will have a worthy name!!

Cheers

Pieter
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I'll wait until I see how it smokes, but that's not a bad idea. It would guarantee I have the only one like it ever. :D
 
Pipe manufacturers have always had a chronic problem with defects in briar. Economically, it made sense to finish them and sell them for whatever they could get rather than pitch them. Some became "second" lines. Ones that didn't make that cut were sold in bulk as basket pipes. The Made in London England stamping probably identified its source, to those in the trade, as the Cadogan cartel.

:face:
 
Obelus":jwwc9lsw said:
I really like Pieter's suggestion. Don't have to worry about it having an effect on the value. I think I might steal it if I can find somebody to brand a few of my no-name favorites for me. Or maybe an obelus set into the stem...
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Then in 50 years some poor chap is going to be wondering why he can't find any information about "bigmick" or obelus" pipes. :shock:

I figured it was a basket or seconds pipe, I was just wondering more about the shape. I've not seen any like that, except a little nose warmer at my local B&M. This is twice that size.
 
Maybe if you dig around and find some shape charts of English makes, you'll find a company that does a similar shape--then you know it's one of their seconds. I have a nice blasted pot that was made by GBD for some smoke shop in Montana or something. I had a shape number, which made it easier; I just searched for ##B and foudn GBD's ##B is the same square-shanked Pot, so it's a GBD. If you look at theif shape charts, maybe you'll find something like that.
 
Similar in shape to this Hardcastle, which is now a secondary line of Dunhill.
 
Obelus":6edvk6jb said:
I do recall reading somewhere of a guy in NY back in the day, just starting out in the tobacco trade, stamping "Made in England" on no-name newly arrived (and unstamped) imports. I guess it was just a cheap and easy addition of perceived value that could readily be passed along to the consumer. Wish I could find the reference, but I'm having no luck.
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It's possible that he was stamping Italian stuff (Barontini) that way. There's no way to prove something like that, but a comparison of enough stamps should turn up differences that would expose them if so.

What factors into it is that England's war loan repayments to the US were horrendous and their economy was in the tank. In yet another of the millions of examples of finance calling the shots, the US tariff schedules were adjusted to engineer a flood of English-made pipes into this country at nominal rates in conjunction with the Cadogan Group (Cartel) and others there stepping production up to maximum levels. A cut of the resulting profits went to debt service, and everybody who mattered was happy.

This did not include American pipe makers like Kaywoodie, who petitioned Congress in vain for years while watching as the domestic market for their products was swamped by imports that were, essentially, being dumped here at low prices that could not have been achieved had not the system been rigged.

Same deal as yours re. the information source.

FWIW

:face:
 
Thanks Obelus. I had tried searching the interwebs, but wasn't getting far.
 
Obelus":tch549tf said:
You're welcome. Pipephil is a useful resource. Wish I could get a better pic of that RL, apart from the finish it looks really close. And now my curiosity is aroused, but I'll be darned if I can find anything more about Royal Lane-- just found an old ebay listing and a couple of inconclusive threads. I like their motto: The Pipe of Excellence. Wonder if anyone else knows anything about them.

And Yak, thanks for the info; interesting stuff. I wish somebody had the time and patience to collate and cross reference all the knowledge that appears and vanishes on the forum. Google is not always my friend.
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I would hazard a guess that royal lane would have been some sort of charatan or perhaps Ben wade seconds line. Herman G Lane bought charatan, which eventaully declines into ruin after being sold by lane's heirs to dunhill. He also bough Ben wade, turning Ben wade into a charatan second. I would imagine that royal lane would have been some sort of offshoot of a lane owned pipe brand, with charatan being my first guess.
 
So I will probably never find another like it? :D

There is just something about this pipe that attracted me to it. I don't know exactly what,it it's an odd shape, still kinda normal, the bottom of it you can see cross sections of the grain, looks a little like veins cut in half . Even if it's totally worthless I still like it. Still haven't had the time to add tobacco and fire yet....
 
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