Which Is the Earliest Dunhill?

The question of the earliest Dunhill has no single answer in Dunhill collecting. It is really at least three separate questions: what is the oldest object bearing the brand's name, how precisely can pipes from before the year-code era be dated, and which is the earliest known example of a given shape line. On all three fronts, the answer keeps receding as new pieces surface.

Dunhill Before the Pipe

Alfred Dunhill was born in London in 1872. His father, Henry Dunhill (1842-1901), ran a workshop around Euston Road that began with sack-sewing and expanded into tarpaulins, tents, rope, and harness; records show the product range had broadened considerably by the mid-1880s. Alfred joined his father as an apprentice at fifteen, in 1887. He took over the business in 1893 and soon shifted the family trade's target market by founding the "Dunhill's Motorities" line for well-off motoring enthusiasts.

This background shows that the oldest object bearing the brand name need not be a pipe. One example that has entered the collecting literature is a metal fly-fishing box stamped HENRY DUNHILL with the Euston Road address. The piece is reported to date to the late 1880s; though this dating rests on a single collector's examination rather than independent record, the box is nonetheless counted among the oldest surviving Dunhill products.

The Stamps Under the Mouthpiece

Starting in 1918, straight-stemmed Dunhill pipes carry a year code; the code is not numeric until 1921, reverting to digits from 1922 onward. For the brand's earliest production years, 1910-1917, no such marker exists. All that remains are the patent stamps on the shank, and even those give only a "cannot have been made before this date" lower bound.

The clue that narrows the gap came from the underside of the mouthpieces. According to collector Kevin Chapman's compilation, some early mouthpieces are unstamped, some carry "REG. No 654638," and a small number carry "PROV. PRO 2983/16." The "/16" at the end ties the registration application to 1916; from this, the registration is inferred to have been granted around 1917, with the registration-number stamp remaining in use until roughly 1933. The same comparison places the small white dot on the mouthpiece giving way to the medium dot around 1917.

For pipes stamped DUNHILL / DUKE ST S.W., the resulting sequence can be summarized as follows:

Stamp combination	Date range
Patent stamp, small white dot, unstamped mouthpiece underside	1912-1916
Patent stamp, small white dot, PROV. PRO stamp	1916-1917
Patent stamp, small white dot, REG. No stamp	1917
Patent stamp, medium dot, REG. No stamp	1917-1918 (through October)

Two caveats apply when using this table: stamps on the mouthpiece underside are easily worn away during polishing, and mouthpieces may have been replaced over time. For reading the shank stamps, see the entry on Dunhill Patent Stamps and Dating.

"Earliest Known" in the LB and ODA Lines

The same search continues for individual shape lines. A large-bodied Bruyere billiard, dated to 1917 by its stamp sequence, carries the "H.W" (handworked) mark and the "8" bore-size mark seen on 1920s LBs, and its bowl height and length also match LB measurements. The pipe carries no "LB" stamp, because that shape name is thought not to have been used before 1918-1919. John C. Loring accordingly considers the piece a forerunner of the line. The slender shank and straight bowl walls are also notable: the pipe sits closer to the thin-shanked Shell-finish variant than to the standard thick-shanked LB of the 1920s.

The date has likewise crept back for the postwar ODA line. The 832, based on an LB with an extended shank and short saddle mouthpiece, is considered the first standard postwar ODA shape. For a long time it was accepted that the 800-series shape numbers came into use in 1950; in the early 2000s, the start date was pushed back a year when 1949-dated 832s turned up carrying only the ODA stamp, since the number sequence had not yet been established. A Shell 832 dated to 1948 has also been reported; if this date, resting on a single collector's examination, is confirmed, it would become the earliest known modern ODA. For the corresponding numbers, see the Dunhill Shape Numbers list.