Dunhill Special Series

Dunhill Special Series is a heading gathering Alfred Dunhill's pipes that fall outside its ordinary catalogue production. These pieces are known not by an individual shape or finish name but by the reason for their release: an award, an anniversary, a merchant's special commission. What they share is a low production run, numbering, and often metalwork added to the body. To become familiar with the brand's standard production and stamping conventions, see the entries Dunhill White Spot and Dunhill dating guide.

Microphone (1981)

The "Pipe Smoker of the Year" title, awarded by the British Pipesmokers' Council between 1964 and 2003, was not just a title; a pipe was also commissioned for that year specifically for the winner. The 1982 holder of the title was BBC radio presenter Dave Lee Travis, and the commission went to Dunhill. Made to resemble a studio microphone as a nod to the presenter's profession, the pipes were completed in 1981; a total of fifty were made and stamped from 1 to 50. Records indicate that the series' first number went to the display case of the Alfred Dunhill museum in London, and the second to Travis. The rest gradually entered collector circulation over time; because of its unusual form, it is counted among the brand's most easily recognized commemorative pieces.

Longitude (1999)

Longitude, prepared to mark the arrival of the new millennium, was released in 1999 and its production was capped at 2,000 pieces. The body chosen was a Shell-finished billiard in the size-5 group; the sandblasted surface and the most familiar shape were thus brought together in one pipe. The real innovation was a gold-plated, rotating stainless-steel band placed at the rim of the bowl. The world's major cities are engraved on the band according to their time zones, and a red marker is positioned to show the point of rotation; when the marker is aligned with the desired city, the time there can be read off. The mechanism was also built to account for daylight-saving offsets. Each piece was individually numbered.

Classic Series and Special Commissions

Not all the commemorative pipes are tied to a single event. The Classic Series, released in limited numbers in the 1990s, aims to bring back into circulation shapes that survive from the brand's production dating back to the workshop opened at Mason's Yard in 1910. It is less a search for a new design than a selection that looks back at its own catalogue.

One-off commissions fall entirely outside the notion of a series. The most-discussed example in this group is a pipe made in 2005 for the Cologne pipe merchant Peter Heinrichs, depicting the city's cathedral. Records indicate that an XL-sized, four-star straight-grain freehand body was used, with a cathedral-shaped cap worked in 925 sterling silver placed on top. Because the cap's perforations and the main door opening allow smoke to pass, the piece is technically functional, but its purpose was not to be smoked; records indicate it was put on display at the Cologne City Museum. Works at this scale are counted among the boundary examples where the briar body becomes a canvas for jewellery work.