In Search of the First Shell: The Earliest Dunhill Shell Stamps

The search for the first Shell is the name given to the debate over which year can be assigned to the earliest pipes Dunhill released with a sandblasted finish. Since no dated catalogue page or announcement introducing the series is known, the earliest years must be read from two indirect sources: the timeline of the registration paperwork and the stamps struck on the shanks of the pipes. The oil-curing and sandblasting sequence covered by the patent is discussed in the entry The History of Dunhill Shell Briar.

The Timeline of the Registration Paperwork

Date	Record
13 October 1917	British application filed
12 April 1918	Complete specification finalized
14 October 1918	British document No. 119708 published
14 October 1918	American application filed under serial no. 258,053
25 May 1920	American patent registered under no. 1,341,418

The filing date shows that the American application was prepared without waiting for the British document to be issued. It is reported that the Canadian paperwork lagged the American process by a year at both stages, with the application filed in 1919 and the document granted in 1921; neither of these has been confirmed by an independent registration record. For the general place of patent records in dating, see the entry pipe patents.

What the Stamps Can and Cannot Tell Us

Because the year-code system was not settled until the early 1920s (compilations place its start somewhere between 1921 and 1922), the only measure available for Shells made before that is the form of the stamp itself. The most common pattern is DUNHILL'S "SHELL" over MADE IN ENGLAND followed by one of two pairs of lines: PAT. MAR.9.15 with PAT.APP FOR, referencing the American registration, or PAT.1914 with PAT.APP FOR, referencing the Canadian one. Because "application filed" on the second line shows that the sandblasting patent had not yet been finalized in that market, these pipes fall into roughly the 1919-1921 range. The same years also show the stamp 5861/12 . 119708/17, combining the inner-bore and sandblasting patents on a single line. (The inner-bore number is written as 5816/12 in some compilations; the registration record gives 5861/12.)

British stamps follow a rule of their own: unlike American and Canadian stamps, they show the year the application was filed rather than the year the document was granted, which is why the Shell reads 119708/17. Since the number could only be cut into the mold after registration, and allowing time for the mold to be made, a pipe bearing the British Shell patent number is dated no earlier than 1919. A breakdown of the stamp families is given in the entry Dunhill patent stamps and dating.

The Case for a Pre-1918 Date

The view that the series was sold before the British document was issued rests, in collector literature, on a handful of outlier examples examined by John C. Loring. On these pipes, the flat panel where the stamp is struck was carved into the wood rather than leveled flush with the sandblasted surface; this treatment is reportedly not found in production after 1919. One example bears DUNHILL.LONDON over "SHELL BRIAR" and the words U.S.A. PAT / APPLD FOR. The stamp is anomalous in two respects: the brand name lacks the possessive, and it lacks the country-of-origin marking then required for goods shipped to America. The fact that the city line under the brand name changed from DUKE ST. S.W. to LONDON at the end of 1918 is also used as a yardstick for reading these examples.

Building on this, the argument holds that the first Shells went on sale in the autumn of 1917, when the British application was filed, and reached officers at the front before the war ended. The case rests on a single collector source; since no example that can be assigned to before 1918 beyond dispute has yet been produced, the series' first year continues to be argued by inference rather than settled by documentation.