Directory of British Pipe Brands (1/2)

The Directory of British Pipe Brands brings together, in a single alphabetical list, pipe brands made in Britain or stamped on behalf of British firms. British pipe making grew in the second half of the nineteenth century with the spread of briar, and alongside a handful of large factories around London, hundreds of tobacconist shops had pipes made under their own name. Because of this, a significant portion of the names in this list are not independent workshops but shop brands or second-quality lines ordered from well-known manufacturers. The directory comes in two parts; this first part covers the 93 brands between A. Frankau & Co. and Page.

Brands

• A. Frankau & Co. — an English pipe factory that operated independently until 1920. It passed to the Oppenheimer Pipe group that year, and is counted among the ancestors of the structure later known as BBB.

• Abbey Pipes — a small family business operating in Lancashire, at the foot of the Pennines. It was one of the few English brands to survive the wave of mergers and takeovers of the 1970s and early 1980s, producing mostly classic shapes and, in smaller numbers, freehand pipes. It is known for hand work that keeps machine use to a minimum.

• Abbott — reported as a brand of Andersen & Abbot, though the form of the stamp points to an early Sasieni second. This suspicion is reinforced by the fact that while the firm's name is spelled with a single "t," the pipes are stamped with a double "t."

• Academy Award — a second-quality line sold under the Comoy's umbrella.

• AGE — thought to have been made by or for Salmon & Gluckstein. One known example carries a silver band with a 1919 Birmingham hallmark; the band bears the "(AGE) EXTRA" stamp along with the silversmith's initials.

• Air-o-Dry — a Comoy's product according to its stamp. The pipe's unusual moisture-retention mechanism was patented in Montreal in 1933 under the name of Marcel C. H. Jacquemin.

• Alco — launched by Falcon in 1964. George Hunt, who took over Falcon in 1949, had the letters sanded off aluminum shanks after seeing that Comoy's was also selling a line of pipes under the name Falcon in the United Kingdom. The Falcon name later became usable again in its own country, while Alco remained the name of a separate model with a finer thread than the standard Falcon.

• Allen & Wright — appears to have been a tobacconist with multiple branches selling a wide pipe range. Whether it made its pipes itself or had them made by another firm is unclear. Boxed examples and its own catalog are documented.

• Archer's — only the brand name is recorded in the archive; its manufacturer, period, and base are unknown.

• Ashby Hall — an English brand owned by Ashby Hall Briar Pipes Limited. Its pipes were made by Stan Haney, a Charatan craftsman. Because Haney left Charatan in 1977 and left the trade altogether in 1982, production is thought to fall between these two dates. Its very rare examples closely resemble Charatan freehands from the Lane era.

• Ashford — although there is a Peterson line of the same name, examples carrying this stamp are thought to be of English make.

• Atwood — made for or in cooperation with Atwood M. Tempe by various manufacturers, chiefly Comoy's. The pipes carry a handwritten Atwood stamp on the shank and a handwritten "A" on the stem, with a permanent aluminum bowl liner at the base. A "53" stamp on one known example may indicate the year of manufacture.

• Auld Erin — understood from period catalog pages to have been a second-quality or economy sideline of Peterson. Examples exist in both Irish and English manufacture.

• Barbic — made for Bartlett & Bickley Ltd. of London, recognized by its "London Made" stamp and red dot. The factory closed sometime in the 1930s or 1940s; the name's US trademark registration, made in 1949, later lapsed.

• Bartlett & Bickley — a London-based brand and trading name that ended around 1966. In a 1922 trademark dispute with Dunhill, Dunhill's demand that the red dot be removed was rejected.

• BB&S — an abbreviation of the name Bill Barling & Sons, and a sideline from Barling's transitional period. Challenger, Rallye, and Londoner are among the lines under this umbrella.

• Beney, Ltd. — founded by Robert E. Beney, who designed and sold the first Beney mechanical lighter in 1919. Beney also developed an automatic mechanism that worked when Dunhill's horn-shaped lighter was turned upside down. The company changed hands in 1938, took the name Beney, Ltd., produced pipes under the Saville brand, and for a time owned H. Perkins & Sons, maker of Ascot pipes.

• Benson & Hedges — these "London Made" stamped pipes were made for London Tobacco Co., most likely by Comoy's or Orlik. Some carry a "Made in U.S.A." stamp, and the maker of those is unknown.

• Berkeley Club — one of Sasieni's second-quality brands; understood to have been distributed in the United States by John Hudson Moore Inc.

• Bewlay — a brand of Bewlay & Co. Ltd., formerly named Salmon & Gluckstein Ltd. It operated from the start of the twentieth century until the 1950s, after which it passed to Imperial Tobacco Co. The shop chain closed in the 1980s. Because it had its pipes made by established firms such as Barling, Charatan, Loewe & Co., Sasieni, Huybrecht, and Orlik, the brand was considered high-quality in England.

• Birks — its maker could not be identified. It has been suggested that it may have been made for Henry Birks & Sons to be given as gifts to executives or customers, but this remains only a hypothesis.

• Bra-Way — Sabre is reported to have been one of this brand's earlier lines. No further detail about the brand has been documented.

• Briar Pipe Makers in London Directories — not a brand but a compilation of briar pipe makers' listings drawn from London trade directories between 1882 and 1899. Names appearing in these records include J. Flachfeld & Co. on Basinghall Street, Sam Weingott & Son on Fleet Street, A. Delacour on Nicholl Square, Salamon Block in Barbican, and Allen & Wright. The compilation is valuable for showing how concentrated the pipe trade of the period was in the City of London.

• Britannia — appears in records in two distinct forms: a brand made for a London firm, and a second-quality sideline of Comoy's. The name was later revived and used on pipes made under contract by a major London manufacturer, in wide-bowled classic English shapes.

• British American Tobacco Company — formed in 1902 from the partnership of Imperial Tobacco Co. and the American Tobacco Company. It is today a global tobacco company operating in more than two hundred markets.

• British Guard — its pipes carry "British Guard" and "London England" on the shank and "BG" on the stem. The maker is unknown.

• Broseley Clay Tobacco Pipes — production carried on by clay pipe maker Rex M. Key in the town of Broseley, Shropshire. Records of clay pipes in the town go back to 1590, with production peaking in the seventeenth century. The last factory, belonging to Edwin Southorn, closed in 1957, and the building later became a clay pipe museum. Key works by traditional methods and makes pipes to order.

• Brumfit — examples dated to around 1919 carry the stamps "BRUMFIT" and "N.P.U. LONDON." The name Brumfit corresponds to the D. Brumfit tobacconist shop in London, and N.P.U. to Louis Blumfeld's Nec Plus Ultra brand. Accordingly, the pipes were made by Blumfeld on behalf of the shop. Nec Plus Ultra is also recorded as having previously been one of A. Frankau & Co. Ltd.'s brands.

• Buttner — bakelite pipes with a removable porcelain inner bowl. The brand was distributed under separate patents in Great Britain, Germany, and France.

• Byford — was a second-quality sideline of Orlik; later began to be produced under Cadogan.

• Calabresi — its pipes were made by Thomas Cristiano in Florida. Its sideline is Londonaire. Calabresi-stamped pipes generally carry a "C" letter on the stem; Londonaire examples were made in both England and Italy and carry an anchor emblem on the stem. Plateau-surfaced briar pipe stands from the same maker are also known.

• Camelia — one of GBD's second-quality brands, appearing in catalog pages as one of the many names owned by the Oppenheimer Pipe group.

• Capstan — examples stamped "CAPSTAN" and "LONDON MADE" are known. In Wilczak and Colwell's manufacturer index, the name "Capstan, The" is listed as made by Hardcastle.

• Carrington — W. H. Carrington & Co. was founded in Manchester by William Henry Carrington. Carrington gave his occupation as tobacconist in the 1891 census, following in the footsteps of his father, John Carrington. The firm registered its first silver hallmark in Chester in 1888, and in Birmingham in 1891. The "W.H.C." stamp appears on its silver-banded briar and meerschaum pipes. The company operated for roughly a century before closing.

• Channber — appears in records under the name Channber Briar Pipe, abbreviated CBP. No further detail has been documented.

• Charatan Models & Shape Information — a rundown of Charatan models and shapes compiled for collectors. It notes that the DC abbreviation used in the Lane era denotes the graduated Double Comfort stem, that the straight-grain freehand lines ran in order from Summa Cum Laude up to the Supreme and Selected tiers, and that the names Special, Relief Grain, Belvedere, and Perfection corresponded to the standard-shape lower tiers. The rundown also gives shape numbers alongside their counterparts.

• Charing Cross — a shop brand of G. Smith & Sons. The firm operated on Charing Cross Road, where it opened in 1869, until the early 2010s, selling pipes stamped "Charing Cross" alongside "London Made" or "Made in England" and a shape number.

• Chatham — according to José Manuel Lopes, a brand sold by Comoy's but made by Gasparini and most likely Rossi.

• Chatsworth — thought to be one of the brands made by the L. S. Glass workshop in London.

• Churchill — the name of a tobacconist shop in Norwich, at the corner of St Andrew's Street and Bridewell Alley. The name derives from the shop's location next to a church and at the foot of two hills. Its manager, John Elvin, retired in 2008, and the business was recorded that same year as affiliated with Keith Garrard.

• City de Luxe — a sideline launched in 1921 under the GBD and Oppenheimer Pipe umbrella. It became one of Britain's best-selling mid-priced pipes in the 1930s. Its distinguishing mark is a star inset in the stem; examples exist with both English and French stamps.

• Commodore — the same name has been used in many countries. In Spain it was Iberica de Pipas's entry-level line. In England, Charatan, Comoy's, E. Desguingand & Sons, London Pipe Co., Bernhardt & Myers, and Druid Pipe sold pipes under this name. In the United States, M. Linkman & Co., Lane Limited, Dr. Grabow, and Big Ben used the same name.

• Conway — according to Pipephil, Conway pipes were most likely made by Singleton & Cole, a likelihood that becomes almost certain in examples carrying a shape number. Wilczak and Colwell, meanwhile, record that Loewe had a line called Conway; the name also appears in Loewe's shape list.

• Copley's — the brand of the Copley's Pipe and Tobacco shop, operating in Los Angeles. The shop is listed in a pipe magazine dated 1948.

• Corinthian — examples stamped "Corinthian De Luxe" were made in England by Comoy's for Grant's Pipe Shop in San Francisco. Pipes made under the same name for Sutliff, also in San Francisco, are known as well.

• Coronet — one known example is a Comoy's-made model dated to the 1930s.

• Craig Buchanan — shop pipes made for Craig A. Buchanan (1948-2012), owner of the Buchanan Tobacco Shop in South Carolina. Judging by the stamps, orders were placed with at least two separate English manufacturers; one of these is Comoy's, identified by its distinctive circular "Made in England" stamp.

• Cross Bow — these "Cross Bow" stamped pipes, with shapes recalling the Old England line, give the impression of a Sasieni second.

• Crown of England — Pipephil notes that the name may belong to H. Perkins & Sons Ltd.'s line of the same name. Known examples carry a five-crown emblem on the shank and stem, with no other name stamp present.

• Damman — the form of the stamp and the moisture-retention mechanism point to Comoy's manufacture. The pipes are thought to have been stamped for the Damman Brothers tobacconist, founded on Swanston Street in Melbourne in 1858.

• David Cooper — the brand of English clay pipe maker David J. Cooper. As of 2005 he served as chairman of the Pipe Club of London and sold around seven thousand pipes a year. He also produced for a time within the Amberley Museum.

• Derfield — made by Derfield & Co. Ltd., located in Burlington Arcade, London. The box of the known "Green" model bears the words "London Made" and notes a hand-cut vulcanite stem.

• Digby — GBD's second-quality line, used for bowls too flawed to be sold under the main brand. It was offered in its 1976 catalog with two finishes, a plain walnut tone and a dark sandblast; its promotion openly stated that it was made by GBD.

• Dover DeLuxe — made by Comoy's for the Arthur Leonard tobacconist in Oregon. The name comes from Dover on England's south coast and the white cliffs facing the Channel.

• Duke — no documented information exists beyond the "The Duke" wording on the stamp.

• Dunhill Catalogs — the archive contains only catalog images of undetermined date; there is no brand record as such.

• Everyman Shape 388 — Everyman is Comoy's well-known second-quality brand. Shape 388 was initially listed as a cutty in the shape list, and later described as a Liverpool with the front and back of the bowl tapered to a point.

• Fairway — an old English brand belonging to A. Frankau & Co. Ltd. Its emblem is a white letter "F"; its stamp reads "Fairway / London Made / England." It later became one of BBB's second-quality brands.

• FEC — the brand of Friedrick Edwards & Co., founded in London around 1884, which produced chiefly meerschaum and calabash pipes. The company was bought by S. Weingott & Sons in 1904, but continued as a separate business until 1916.

• Fellowship of The White Spot — only the name appears in records; no documentation exists regarding its scope or period.

• Fortnum & Mason — the famous London store, in business since 1707, has sold pipes under its own name alongside countless other products. The most notable of these is the Windward model, with its rotating wind cap; the pipe was made to a design Frederick Hudes patented in the United States in 1938.

• Frederick Tranter — the name and brand of an English tobacconist with shops in Bath and Oxford. Its pipes were made by George Huybrecht, whose name is also recorded as Hubrecht; some examples carry a "Fred K. Tranter" stamp.

• Fromm — master pipe maker Colin Fromm of Chatham, Kent, began making pipes under the Invicta Briars brand, founded in 1974 when Colin Leeson bought an established pipe-repair business. He soon shifted his focus to the Castleford brand. After J. B. Russell, Inc., which had bought the Charatan name from Dunhill in 1988, closed in 2002, the name passed back to Dunhill, and production management of the line was given to Fromm.

• G. Smith & Sons — the name and brand of an English tobacconist founded in London on Charing Cross Road in 1869. The shop is understood to have closed around 2012-2013.

• Gallaher — the business Tom Gallaher founded in Londonderry in 1857 to produce and sell pipe tobacco. It grew and moved to Belfast within sixteen years. In the late 1870s Gallaher crossed the Atlantic to personally oversee the purchase of tobacco leaf; his trips to Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia, and Missouri became a regular occurrence in the years that followed. Pipes stamped "J Gallaher" are, judging by the form of the stamp, made by Comoy's.

• Glass — the small L. S. Glass factory in London closed long ago. Its main business was supplying near-finished bowls to major brands and producing commissioned brands for third parties. Its own brands include Astoria, Canton, Chatsworth, Cleveland, Dr Watson, Golden Key, Langham, Lilliput, Rathbone, Siesta, Trubent, and Vesta.

• H&H — known from an early Comoy's-made example dated, judging by its circular "Made in England" stamp, to the 1920s or 1930s, carrying an "H&H" emblem set inside a diamond. Its shape number matches Comoy's shape chart.

• Hall & Fitzgerald — an English manufacturer. Associated with brands named Clifton, Dorchester, Excelsior, Hercules, Oxford, and Wessex.

• Hape — a brand of undetermined origin. One known example carries the stamps "HAPE," "Timber Product," and "London Made," while another carries the stamp "HAPE-Sport."

• Herbert Merchant Inc. — the company of Herbert Merchant, who died in 1944. It produced a pipe called the Marchent Service, a model that later passed to Holland Penny Limited. It was among the pipes favored by North American entertainer Bing Crosby.

• Hercules — an old English-American brand. It was sold by Hall & Fitzgerald, Civic, Oppenheimer Pipe, Reiss-Premier Co., and Kaywoodie; its emblem is the letter "H." Savinelli also has a separate line called Hercules Ex.

• Huybrecht — George Huybrecht was among the partners of Davis & Huybrecht, founded in 1919. He also worked for Barling and made pipes for shops such as Frederick Tranter in Bath and Oxford.

• Imperial Tobacco Co. — formed in 1901 through the merger of several English tobacco companies. In 1902 it entered a partnership with the American Tobacco Company, giving rise to the British American Tobacco Company. The brands Comoy's, Bewlay, Nording, Ogden's, Salmon & Gluckstein, and Steel's are associated with this structure.

• Inderwick & Co — founded in the early nineteenth century by John Inderwick, who is counted among London's earliest tobacconists. Some of its pipes were made by Comoy's. The firm operated in various locations over time, with its first address near Leicester Square.

• Irwin's — thought to be a second-quality brand of GBD and part of the Oppenheimer Pipe holding. It was made in England; whether it was also made in France is unknown. Its catalog promotion emphasized its two-tone brown finish and the use of rum during aging.

• Jansen's N.O. — made in classic English shapes by Comoy's and GBD for the Jansen Pipe Shop in New Orleans. The shop in the French Quarter is said to have been founded in the 1860s by German immigrant August Jansen, and to have closed with the death of his grandson Edwin Jansen in the early 1980s.

• John Peel — understood to have been made by Portland Pipe Co. Portland Pipe Co. is reported to have been founded in the 1930s as a sideline affiliated with Barling, closing in 1962. The common stamp reads "John Peel, A Portland Pipe, Made Wholly in England"; the B. Barling wording on some examples shows the connection directly. Because Finlay bought Barling in 1962 and Imperial held a stake in Finlay, John Peel pipes with an Imperial stamp exist as well.

• John Redman Ltd. / British Empire Pipe Co. — a manufacturer that operated in the Hackney district of London. Its known lines include Aristocrat, Buckingham, Buckingham Palace, Canberra, Captain Fortune, Dr John, Golden Square, Redonian, Richmond, and Twin Bore.

• J.W. — known as the brand of the Wilke tobacco shop located inside the John Wanamaker store in Philadelphia. The pipes date to the 1930s and 1940s; the circular stamp bears the address NO. 1 BROAD STREET, the (J.W) emblem, and the period's circular MADE IN ENGLAND marking. Production is reported to have been carried out on the shop's behalf by Comoy's; the wording No. 1 Broad Street was registered as a trademark for John Wanamaker on April 18, 1933.

• Kennett — the Kennett pipe's maker is J. A. Kennett, Ltd. of London.

• Kettle's Pipe — recorded in Wilczak and Colwell's index as commissioned or sold by a US firm in 1922; the pipes themselves, however, are of English make. The silver on one documented billiard set is hallmarked London 1910, and the set is understood to have been made for tobacconist William Hartin of Worcester.

• Keyser — system pipes known as Keyser Hygienic. There is an aluminum socket inside the briar bowl with a tube reaching into the chamber; the downward-curved tube at the end of the military-mount stem seats into this socket. As smoke swirls inside the socket, moisture condenses on the aluminum surface, and the cooled air is drawn through the stem.

• Koppenhagen — Joseph Koppenhagen was among Britain's first briar pipe makers. He worked in the second half of the nineteenth century.

• Litewate — made by Parker. Also sold by R. M. Littaur & Co. Ltd. and Sasieni.

• Loewe Shape Chart — the shape list of Loewe & Co. The brand's models are known by English town names rather than numbers: Andover lumberman, Barry apple, Bath dublin, Inverness lovat, Liverpool liverpool, and Kendal rhodesian are among them. The list specifies, for each name, the bowl shape, whether the shank is straight or bent, and stem details.

• M M Importing Co. — a New York-based importer. Records show it imported Dunhill pipes before opening its own store; it later became Sasieni's sole US importer. Blue Bar stamped pipes made for the firm by both Sasieni and Comoy's are known; boxed pairs of these dated 1926 are documented.

• Maurice — pipes sold through A. Colin Lunn Ltd. of Cambridge. Period promotion highlighted a patented leather case, an ebonite bowl cap, and a separate compartment for a spare nicotine trap.

• Middleton — Middleton Selbur pipes were made by Comoy's for John Middleton in the 1930s. The earliest examples carry a circular stamp reading "Made in England" in the center. The Virgin line was distinguished by the beauty of its grain. The John Middleton Tobacco Company is a firm that produces widely sold pipe tobaccos in the United States.

• Newman — W. H. Newman Ltd. was located on New Street in Birmingham. The wording "Newman's English Made" appears on cigarette holder packaging, while the label inside the box states that the firm was a pipe maker in London, Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester.

• Nu-old — appears to be affiliated with Civic Pipes in London. Some pipes carry both Civic and Nu-old stamps, while examples exist stamped only "Nu-old / London Made / Made in England." It is known to have been available in Wally Frank stores in the 1960s, a period preceding Civic's acquisition by Cadogan.

• Ogden's — a brand made for the English pipe tobacco company of the same name. The company was founded in Liverpool in 1860 by Thomas Ogdon, and thirty years later began producing St. Bruno Flake, one of the best-known blends in Britain and abroad. A notable pipe collection is displayed at the Boundary Lane factory.

• Old Mariner — the "Made in England" stamp and shape numbers matching Comoy's chart show that the pipes were made by that firm. Known examples include a plain billiard and a slightly bent prince.

• Page — a documented example carries conflicting markings: the carving on the pipe's shank and the box stamp read "Kent," while the box and case read "Page." The top of the box states that the pipe was made by London craftsmen from selected aged briar, while the bottom states that it was distributed by Andrews & Paige Ltd. of London.