Dating Charatan Pipes

Dating Charatan pipes proceeds indirectly, since the Charatan brand never used a year code: a pipe is placed in a period by looking at the traces successive changes of ownership left on the shank and mouthpiece. These traces alone do not give a single year, but stacked together they let most pipes settle into a range of a few years. The method's one requirement is that the mouthpiece be original; a later-fitted mouthpiece removes one of the two most decisive clues at once, leaving only the shank wording.

Shank Wording and Shape Code

The number of lines struck on the shank is the most practical starting point for placing a period. Up to the 1960s, "CHARATAN'S MAKE LONDON ENGLAND" reads in two lines, and the shape code consists only of digits. Letters added to that code mark the following period: a DC suffix shows the pipe left the factory with a Double Comfort mouthpiece, an X suffix shows it left with a saddle mouthpiece without Double Comfort. If either of these letters is in the code, the pipe dates to after 1960.

The "MADE BY HAND" stamp is reported to have first been struck in 1958, though some records push this a few years earlier or later. In the mid-1960s this wording moved to a three-line arrangement, and shortly after changed from block capitals to a script character. The £ sign seen inside a circle on the shank, the Lane stamp, is not on its own proof of ownership; records say this same stamp was also struck on pipes shipped in years when Lane was still only the American importer. Once production moved to France, wording foregrounding London disappears and is replaced by "CHARATAN of London"; some examples also show a "France" mark on the shank or mouthpiece.

Mouthpiece Shape and the CP Emblem

The second measure confirming the shape-code suffix is the mouthpiece itself. Early pipes used ordinary tapered or saddle mouthpieces; the Double Comfort mouthpiece, with its two-step bite section, was an innovation of the Lane management and has continued to the present. Accordingly, a pipe with a tapered mouthpiece is taken as pre-Lane, one with a Double Comfort mouthpiece as post-1960. Since the saddle mouthpiece appears in both periods, the decision in that case is left to the X suffix in the shape code.

The interlocking CP emblem struck on the mouthpiece also falls roughly into four phases. In the oldest stamps the letters are worked thinly and the C sits inside the P; in the Lane years this same arrangement thickens noticeably. Reportedly, from around 1980 onward, the C no longer sits inside the P; the two letters simply stand joined side by side. The emblems of the Dunhill and Russell periods also differ from each other, though this distinction is only noticeable through comparative study.

Periods and Uncertainties

The division established among enthusiasts follows the firm's ownership history: founder Frederick Charatan's initial period, begun in London in 1863; his son Reuben's period from 1910; then the Lane Limited years; the Dunhill years; the J. B. Russell period; and a second Dunhill period beginning around 2000. The Dunhill years split into two on their own: the early years when production continued at the old London factory, and the later years after that factory closed in 1982 and the work was transferred to the Parker-Hardcastle facility in Walthamstow. In the Russell period, production moved to France, to the town of Saint-Claude, and after 2000 continued at the Invicta Briars workshop run by Colin Fromm.

The boundaries of this framework shift from source to source. For Reuben's death and the firm's sale, the years 1960, 1962, and 1963 are all given; Dunhill's takeover is variously placed at mid-1976 or 1978; the end of the Russell period varies between 2000 and 2002. For this reason, pipes falling close to a period boundary should be given a margin of a few years' uncertainty.