Dunhill Shape Numbers (Shapes List)

Dunhill shape numbers are codes struck on the shank of the brand's pipes to indicate which mould the body came from. The compilation the community calls, in short, the "Dunhill Shapes List" arose from collector Eric W. Boehm scanning the brand's published catalogues to gather these numbers into a single index. It is not an official document issued by the brand itself, but a compilation built through collector effort; its scope and precision are therefore limited to what can be found in the catalogues. For the brand's history, see the Dunhill (White Spot) entry.

Scope of the List

The compilation rests on Dunhill catalogues dated 1928, 1950, 1960, and 1969. The rows follow a fixed layout: first the shape number, then a short description of the body, the group size, the length in inches, and the catalogue years in which the shape appears. The digit at the end of the row indicates the shape family the body belongs to, and matches today's numbering. Grouping likewise follows these families: straight and bent billiards, apple and pot bodies, dublins and zulus, bulldogs and rhodesians, long-shanked canadians, liverpools and lovats, princes and pokers; a separate cluster is opened for singular bodies that fit none of these.

Dunhill's own shape numbers begin at 31 and run to two or three digits; records indicate that 1 through 30 were reserved for pipes the brand had made outside in its earliest years. There are also bodies coded with letters alongside the numbers. R for pot, K for apple, and LB and LBS for large billiards are the best known of these. The panelled, polygonal-shanked, and matching-carved-bit bodies gathered under the heading "Quaint Shape" in the 1928 catalogue make up the bulk of these letter codes.

Reading the Number

The brand overhauled its numbering in the mid-1970s. According to dating guides, the old numbers were dropped in 1976-77 and replaced by a new system in which three-, four-, and five-digit codes appeared together; the five-digit form settled in for stampings after 1978. The form most often encountered today is four digits, read as follows:

• The first digit gives the group size; group 1 is the smallest body, group 6 the largest.

• The second digit shows the bit type: 1 tapered, 2 saddle.

• The last two digits indicate the shape family; per the list's key, 01 is apple, 03 billiard, 04 bulldog, 05 dublin, 09 canadian, 11 lovat.

Accordingly, the number 4103 means a group-4-sized, tapered-bit billiard. What the added digit means in the five-digit form is not certain; it has been suggested it distinguishes deviations from the standard body within the same family.

The ODA and 800 Series

A separate series was used for large bodies falling outside the usual group sizes. ODA-stamped pipes, begun in 1950, are numbered, with gaps, between 801 and 866. This series should not be confused with the brand's early Dunhill OD pipes, individually carved to a customer's request in the 1920s; the ODAs were made not to order but with fixed moulds. The compilation's ODA section rests on the notes of John C. Loring, who worked on the brand's records. The group values Loring gives for these shapes are mostly 4, occasionally 5; that is, the ODA stamp alone does not indicate the largest size, and some group-6 bodies are in fact larger than a typical ODA. The bit difference is also reflected in the number: the saddle-bit form is stamped by prefixing a 6 to the shape number. The list notes that 842, the saddle-bit counterpart of the tapered-bit 806 apple, later carried the stamp 6806, and that 843, the counterpart of the 835 billiard, carried the stamp 6835.

Using the List

The shape number alone gives no date; for the year of manufacture the stamps must be read together, and the method for this is covered in the entry Dunhill patent stamps and dating. The same number has also been given to different bodies at different times: 59 and 60 appear in the list as both straight and bamboo-shanked billiards, while 250, 251, and 635 appear a second time under the name "Windscreen." Group sizes do not map neatly onto shapes and overlap between them; since the group number is known to have first appeared on stamps in 1951, values assigned to older bodies are a retrospective approximation. The compilation itself also contains measurements left with a question mark and numbers of uncertain correspondence. The list is therefore used not as a definitive catalogue but as a reference index.