Caminetto: Brand History, Series, and Reading the Stamps

Caminetto is a pipe brand founded in 1968 in the northern Italian village of Cucciago, recognized by the mustache emblem inlaid on its mouthpiece. Because both the manufacturing arrangement and the stamping style changed between its first period, a little over a decade long, and its second period, which began again in the mid-1980s, the brand is treated as a separate dating topic among collectors.

The Partnership and the Brand Name

At the brand's core are two makers and a merchant. Giuseppe Ascorti, known in the circle as "Peppino," had worked more than a decade at the Castello workshop in Cantù, where he learned to work briar. His next-door neighbor in Cucciago, Luigi Radice, had also been making pipes at Castello since 1960. The two left the workshop at the end of 1968 and set up their own bench in Cucciago. The third partner was Gianni Davoli, who ran a tobacconist's shop in Milan; thanks to his wholesale contacts in America, sales and distribution fell to him.

The brand's name is the diminutive of the Italian word "camino," meaning fireplace. In time the partners themselves came to be called "i tre camini" — the three chimneys. Ascorti's and Radice's thick mustaches are the source both of the emblem inlaid on the mouthpiece and of the phrase associated with the brand, "la pipa del baffo" (the mustache pipe).

Growth and Break-up

Records say American distribution ran through the Tinder Box chain, and the rusticated Business line became the brand's best-known series. As demand grew, Davoli invested in machinery and his share in the company grew; reportedly annual production reached a few thousand pieces. The tension between series production tied to standard shape numbers and an approach based on handwork ended the partnership: Radice left in December 1979 and founded a brand under his own name in 1980. The Ascorti family also left the company that same year; after briefly producing under the name Sergio, they moved to production under their own surname. The Caminetto name was revived by Peppino's son, Roberto Ascorti; production in the new period is taken to have begun in 1986.

First-Period Stamps

In the first period the brand name is struck in two forms: script "Caminetto" or block letters in quotation marks. The location stamp, in turn, appears in three arrangements:

• ASCORTI / RADICE / CUCCIAGO / CANTU-ITALY

• HAND MADE IN ITALY / CUCCIAGO (Co)

• MADE IN ITALY / CUCCIAGO (CANTU)

The first, carrying both makers' names, is taken as the earliest arrangement. The other two name the same place, since Cucciago is a locality within Cantù; for this reason the difference between them is not, by itself, a reliable dating guide. The shape of the mustache emblem on the mouthpiece is a more useful clue: pipes from roughly 1968–1975 carry a mustache resembling a bird in flight, while later years used one that resembles a double comma. Either can appear in gold or white. Some shanks also carry the Tinder Box's own crest.

Business-series pipes are stamped with the series name and shape number; the large size (king size) indicated by the KS that follows is generally accepted. The premium smooth and specialty-finish models, though collectors call them Prestige, do not carry that word on the shank; instead, model names such as Bagdad, Damasco, Excellence, Green Briar, Moustache, New Dear, Red Briar, Sable d'Or, and Torch are struck there.

Second-Period Numbering

After 1986, the stamping settled into a readable system. In the new period's first stamp format, a four-digit cluster stands next to the script Caminetto name: in order, shape, finish, series, and year of manufacture. In the format used later, the cluster shrinks to three — finish, a letter that is mostly "L" (though "R" or "B" appears on some shanks), and year. The finish digit reads as follows: 0 standard smooth, 1 natural straight grain, 2 natural smooth, 6 sandblast, 7 New Dear, 8 Business. Thanks to the year digit, the manufacture year of new-period pipes can be read directly on estate examples. On first-period pipes, dating at the level of a single year is not possible; only the ranges given by the stamp arrangement and the emblem's shape remain.