Bartlett Pipe Co.

Bartlett Pipe Co. was an American venture that tried to turn the idea of lighting a pipe from the bottom rather than the top into a commercial product. The invention behind the brand belonged to Daniel C. Bianchino, a resident of New Jersey; filed on March 6, 1979, the patent was registered on November 25, 1980 as US 4,235,252. Patent records show the right was transferred in 1993 to a New Hampshire-based company called The Bartlett Pipe Company, Inc. — the source of the brand name.

A Bowl That Burns From the Bottom

The Bartlett bowl is designed like a tube open at both the top and bottom ends. The top opening is covered by a lid assembly fastened to the bowl, while the bottom opening carries a base fitted with a stainless-steel screen that holds the tobacco in place. The smoke channel connects to the shank through an air hole just below the top opening. Tobacco is loaded from the top, left just short of this hole, and lit from the screen below. Combustion thus travels upward from the bottom.

The patent text lists the reasoning behind this arrangement: because the combustion front sits at the base, less moisture collects at the bottom of the bowl; ash can be emptied from below; the top lid makes lighting easier in wind and rain; and because the air hole never gets clogged with tobacco, draw stays open. By turning the bowl itself into part of a mechanism, the design comes close to the solutions covered under pipe filters and systems, particularly the example of the Kirsten Pipe Company.

Production and Stampings

The examples that have reached collectors are mostly briar-bodied; both smooth-polished and sandblasted surfaces are reported. The shank is generally stamped with the name "Bartlett" above the patent number, and some pipes also carry the words "Imported Briar." There is no corroborating record of what metal the lid and base were made from.

The design's main practical claim was that the pipe could be managed without letting it go out: tobacco could be added through the top opening, and the base could be removed to empty the ash. The patent text describes this as something that could be done even while smoking.

Records suggest the patent remained with a large manufacturer for a while after registration before returning to the inventor. In this second period a version made of rock maple, known as "The Freedom Smoking Pipe," was developed; for the place of non-briar woods in pipe making, see alternative woods used in pipe making. This version is said to have used cork and leather in the top cap, and for a time the pipes were distributed to around a hundred tobacconists nationwide.

Bartlett never reached a wide audience. Requiring smokers to abandon their usual filling and lighting habits kept the brand confined to a curious minority. Today Bartlett pipes are collected as one of the limited-run examples counted among twentieth-century American patent pipes.