Charatan

Charatan is a pipe brand founded in London in 1863 and counted among the most respected names in the English handmade pipe tradition. Its founder, Frederick Charatan, a Russian-born immigrant, began carving meerschaum pipes on Mansell Street in the Tower Hamlets district; the principal source of this precious mineral at the time was the Eskişehir deposits in Ottoman territory. Once the meerschaum pipes caught on, the workshop moved to larger premises around the corner on Prescot Street; it was here that production of the briar that would make the brand known worldwide also began.

"Charatan's Make": Wholly Handmade

The principle that set Charatan apart from its contemporaries was that every pipe, from raw briar block to finished product — mouthpiece included — was made under one roof, entirely by hand. While many firms of the era "assembled" pipes by joining ready-drilled bowls with mouthpieces bought in from outside, the "Charatan's Make" stamp struck on the pipes was meant precisely to underline that difference. The firm is regarded as the first maker in England to produce wholly handmade briar pipes; this widely repeated claim, however, is not backed by firm documentation.

One sign of the reputation the brand achieved is that the young Alfred Dunhill, dissatisfied with the quality of pipes he imported from France between 1908 and 1910, turned to Charatan and paid high prices to buy from there. In 1910, Dunhill drew one of Charatan's skilled carvers, Joel Sasieni, over to his side and set up his own small workshop at 28 Duke Street.

Frederick retired that same year, 1910, handing the firm to his son Reuben. Under Reuben, Charatan became the benchmark for quality in English handmade pipes. Before 1950 four basic grades were used: Supreme, Selected, Executive, and Belvedere. Top grades added in later years, such as Coronation and Supergrade, came to symbolize the pursuit of flawless grain.

The Lane Era

Herman G. Lane made contact with the Charatan family in 1950 with a view to growing his business in Britain; in 1955, Lane Ltd. replaced Wally Frank as the brand's sole distributor in the United States. After Reuben Charatan's death, recorded as occurring in 1962-1963, his widow sold the firm to Lane Limited. The 1960s and 1970s thus became Charatan's golden age, especially in the American market; collectors today still take the greatest interest in pre-Lane pipes (before 1955) and pipes from the Lane era itself.

Lane's contributions broadened the grade range: Supreme S was introduced in 1957, and most of the other innovations date to the 1960s and early 1970s. The "Double Comfort" design, with a two-step bite platform on the mouthpiece, is one of the icons of this period. The Supergrade and "Summa Cum Laude" stamps, reserved for oversized, freeform top-tier pipes, achieved legendary status among collectors. The workshop also functioned as a training ground for makers: craftsmen such as Dennis Marshall and Barry Jones came up through it. Kenneth Barnes served as the firm's general manager in the 1970s; his son Kennedy Barnes went on to found the company behind James Upshall, Tilshead Pipe Co., together with Barry Jones in 1978, using the craft he had learned there.

Stamps and Dating

The loss of pre-Lane records in a factory fire makes dating early Charatans difficult; enthusiasts therefore look to the stamps. The serifed "L" trademark inside a circle indicates a pipe belongs to the Lane era, though its absence does not prove the opposite: the factory was known for inconsistency in stamping, and this mark was not struck on pipes bound for the European market. The block-letter "MADE BY HAND" stamp generally points to 1958-1965, while the same stamp accompanied by script additions ("City of London," "Extra Large") points to between 1965 and the mid-1970s. The FH abbreviation is accepted as having been used in three separate sizes between 1957 and 1968. The Double Comfort mouthpiece, by contrast, is not a dating criterion; straight and saddle mouthpieces were also produced throughout the Lane era.

Among Charatan's side and secondary brands are Mountbatten (according to records not a second quality but pipes made by apprentices), London Straight Grain, International Selection, Falstaff, Samirva, Vauxhall, Britannia, and Benlet. A detail corrected by those familiar with the family is that the brand name is often misread in English as something like "Sheraton."

Under the Dunhill Roof, and the Brand Today

In 1978, Lane's heirs sold Charatan to Dunhill; the Prescot Street factory closed in March 1982, and the brand's reputation declined after this date. In 1988, Dunhill transferred the Charatan name, its trademark, and its shape chart to the American firm James B. Russell Inc.; during this period the pipes were produced in Saint-Claude, France, with Butz-Choquin generally identified as the manufacturer. When Russell's firm closed in 2002, the brand passed back to Dunhill, and the making of freeform pipes was handed to Colin Fromm's Invicta Briars workshop in Chatham, Kent. According to Dunhill's own management, Charatan pipes have been produced at the Dunhill factory since 2022.

Today the Charatan name lives on two planes at once: on one side a brand still in production, on the other a history whose examples — especially from the Lane era — carry collecting value.