Oldenkott

Oldenkott is a brand with roots reaching back to 18th-century Dutch tobacco trading, which by the mid-20th century had become Germany's largest pipe manufacturer. Its name today is best known for the series briar pipe production sustained for sixty years in the small town of Rees, in the Lower Rhine region.

From Tobacco to Pipes

The family's tobacco business ran along two separate branches. Records show Henricus Oldenkott working tobacco in Weesp in 1740; Hermannus Oldenkott, who lived 1730–1792, set up his own factory in Amsterdam in 1760. The German extension of this second branch was opened in Ahaus in 1819 by one of his sons. The two branches operated independently of each other for a long time.

The turning point came in 1838: August Kersten of Rees bought the factories in Elten and Weesp and took over the business, but kept the Oldenkott name. Under the Kersten family's management the German branch grew quickly and became one of the country's leading tobacco companies; in 1921 one of the most modern facilities of its day was built in Rees. The Dutch operation passed in 1923 to the Amersfoort-based firm Sopla, and production was withdrawn from Amsterdam; in 1929 the company in Rees absorbed the other branch's facilities in Neuss and Ahaus.

In 1932 the company decided to place its own pipes alongside its tobacco. This step would go on to define Oldenkott's core identity in the years ahead.

The Rise of the Rees Factory

After the Second World War, Oldenkott pipes held a significant share of the German market. When interest turned to the pipe following the 1964 publication of the Terry Report, which established the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, the factory enjoyed its most productive years; records show monthly output exceeding forty thousand pipes between 1968 and 1970, with the company becoming Europe's largest pipe manufacturer.

These pipes were made on the lathe and in the mold, using series-production methods; the brand's aim was not individually signed pieces but a consistent, accessible standard. In this respect, Oldenkott is counted among Germany's most typical examples of the divide between factory pipe and artisan pipe. Alongside the main brand, the stamps Eminent, Excelsior, Excellent, and Oldex are reported to have been used as secondary quality or side lines; the Maxim stamp, made for the Hamburg wholesaler Terella, continued under other manufacturers after the factory closed.

A claim often repeated in the community is that Porsche Design-signed pipes were made at Oldenkott. This attribution is disputed: some sources say those pipes came from a different manufacturer, and that Oldenkott instead made its own "Turbo" series under its own name. It has been suggested that the formal similarity between the two lines may have caused this confusion.

Closure and the Brand's Later Life

The company was sold to the Dutch Niemeijer group in 1972, tobacco production stopped entirely in 1974, and the facility became a factory devoted purely to pipes. Peter Kersten bought the business back for the family in 1987, but it could not hold on against the shrinking market; the factory closed in 1992, with only sixteen pipe makers remaining. With this, one of the two large factories associated with Germany alongside Vauen passed into history.

The brand name resurfaced in 2012: Alexander Strähnz of Cologne acquired the rights to the word-and-figure mark "Henric's Oldenkott Senior & Comp.," aiming to resume production at limited scale. By one account, the new models' shapes drew on the old Rees pipes, and the brand's old mark, a red-and-white dot, was revived in the upper tier. The new series was introduced with an exhibition opened at the town's museum.