Square Stamp and Grading on Pre-War Dunhill Bruyere DRs

Pre-war Dunhill Bruyere DRs are pipes carrying the DR stamp that Dunhill applied to straight-grain bodies in the period stretching from the 1910s to the early 1930s. On nearly all of these examples, a small, square-shaped mark appears around the shank writing. What this mark meant remained unclear for a long time; once position data compiled from collections was set alongside the era's catalog grading tiers, the idea arose that the square could be tied to a grading scheme.

The Years When Bruyere Was the Only Option

Alfred Dunhill's tobacco shop opened in 1907 on Duke Street in London's St James's district; the brand is accepted as having begun making its own pipes in 1910. Until the light-colored Root finish was introduced in the early 1930s, Dunhill's only smooth-surfaced finish was Bruyere. For this reason all pre-war DRs are Bruyere-finished; in later generations, the finish that comes to mind with DR will instead be Root. The shank writing reads DUNHILL over DUKE ST SW on the very earliest examples, and DUNHILL over LONDON in later years. For the stamp itself and the selection criteria behind it, see the Dunhill Dead Root entry.

According to the record, the distinction between the two finishes was not just about color. Bruyere bowls were turned, until the 1960s, from hard Calabrian briar, which, though considered well-figured, was not especially suited to straight grain; the Root finish, on the other hand, relied on Corsican briar, more inclined to yield straight grain. The same account states that the source regions changed in the 1960s, with the emphasis shifting to Greek briar. That early smooth-surfaced Dunhills lag behind later ones in grain is mostly explained by this distinction.

How Many Tiers Were in the Catalogs

According to the source, the first trace of a formal grading appears in the 1912 catalog: DR pipes are listed in three tiers. This three-tier arrangement continues until 1923-1924, with the correspondences of the tiers updated a few times in between. Around 1925 a fourth tier is added on top of the existing ones; the large 1928 catalog also shows a four-tier arrangement. These dates and numbers are the only documentary basis making it possible to compare against the positions of the square stamp.

Positions Compiled from Collections

The only bulk data on the stamp's position rests on reports John C. Loring gathered from collectors owning pre-war Bruyere DRs. For sixteen pipes spanning the Duke Street period to 1933, the reported positions break down as follows:

Position of the stamp	Number of pipes
After the N in LONDON	9
Before the L in LONDON	4
After the L in DUNHILL	1
Beside the D at the start of DUNHILL	1
No visible square	1

The single example without a square dates to 1920. Because the compilation was carried out by a single person and limited to sixteen pipes, these numbers show no more than a tendency.

What Can and Cannot Be Said

Even with a small sample, the mark does not appear to have been applied at random: the square recurs at a few specific points on the shank from the early 1910s to the early 1930s. Positions around LONDON are taken to correspond to lower tiers, those around DUNHILL to higher ones. The idea that the positions form a four-step sequence from lowest to highest remains at the level of a hypothesis, and is not presented as a firm conclusion in the source either. It is reported that the mark continues on Root-finished DRs after the 1930s, but that both the positions and the tiers change. Similar squares seen beside the letter A, or an A enclosed in a circle, on ordinary non-DR Bruyeres have no corresponding tier in the catalogs; these are thought to relate to a production or distribution arrangement. For other secondary marks found on the shank, see the Dunhill's supplementary stamps entry, and for reading the year codes, see Dunhill patent stamps and dating.