Richard Carleton Hacker

Richard Carleton Hacker is one of the American names who has reached the widest readership in pipe and cigar writing over the last forty years. His connection to pipes was forged not at the workbench but through the pen and through collecting; even so, because a limited number of pipes bear his name, he is also mentioned on brand lists. Being placed among Danish makers on some of these lists is a misclassification: Hacker is American, and the pipes made under his name were produced not in Denmark but in English workshops.

Books

The author's watershed work in the field is The Ultimate Pipe Book, catalogued to 1984; the American and British editions were prepared separately, and a German edition appeared under the title Die Kunst Pfeife zu rauchen. Two years later came The Christmas Pipe, limited to two thousand five hundred copies, which became a sought-after title among collectors once it sold out. Rare Smoke, devoted to pipe collecting, appeared in 1999, and Pipesmoking — A 21st Century Guide, which gathered the subject from manufacture to blend selection in a single volume, followed in 2000; the latter devotes a separate section to the history and character of more than a hundred commercial blends. Alongside the books, an introductory video was also released under the author's name.

According to his own promotional materials, Hacker has published eleven books on pipes and cigars in the US, UK, and Germany; the same materials also cite membership in the Académie Internationale de la Pipe and honorary membership in the pipe makers' guild of Saint-Claude (Confrérie des Maîtres-Pipiers). Since no independent record of these titles could be located, they are reported here as the author's own statement. Readers wishing to view this alongside other reference works in the field can find a framework in the entry on pipe books and publications.

Signature Series Pipes

Several companies have produced pipes for Hacker, made to his own design notes and stamped with his name. Lopes's compilation mentions Dunhill and its North American distributor, J.B. Russell, among these projects; the records are not clear about which model appeared in which year.

The best-documented link in the series is the 2002 Signature Edition. According to records, this pipe was limited to one hundred fifty pieces; the author's name is stamped on one side of the shank, the series name and year on the other, and the ferrule carries a hand-applied, gold-filled signature logo. The shape was taken from a 1930s English "private label" pipe in the author's collection: a quarter-bent bulldog with a diamond-section shank and a military mount with a vulcanite insert. The example it was modeled on carries the "St. James" stamp and was known as a Comoy's product; the new series was also made by the same firm. All of these details rest on a single period magazine article; no independent confirmation has been found.