Dating Dunhill Before the Year Code (1907-1921)

Dating Dunhill before the year code is the task of placing pipes made before 1921 — the year the brand began striking a small year digit on the shank — into their proper period. In this era, no single mark gives the year; the city line, the patent number, the finish name, and the arrangement of the lettering are read together. The result is often not a single year but a range of two or three. The year 1921, when the use of the year digit began, and the period after it, are covered in a separate entry.

Stages of Production

Alfred Dunhill opened a small tobacconist's shop on Duke Street in the St James's district in 1907. In the early years all the pipes on the counter were commissioned from other workshops; on these examples the shape numbers reportedly stayed between 1 and 30. Starting in 1910, part of production passed into the brand's own hands, but the bowls continued to be turned in France for a long time. It was not until 1920 that the final stage of pipe-making was also brought to London. This is why it is misleading to call a pipe from 1910-1919 simply "English-made": the bowl was shaped in France and the pipe finished in London.

Two markers from the transitional period give further dating help. The white dot on the mouthpiece was first seen as a brand mark in 1912; some compilations place the date at 1915 and explain the dot as a mark showing which face of the mouthpiece should sit on top. Because the two accounts do not agree, the white dot alone is not considered a firm boundary. The sandblasted Shell finish was added in 1917; that same year, briar sourced from Calabria is reported to have come into limited use.

City Line and Letter Arrangement

The most reliable indicator of the period is the branded face of the shank. From 1910 to the autumn of 1918, DUKE ST. S.W. was struck under DUNHILL. In the final months of 1918, LONDON took the bottom line's place, and this layout was kept until 1951; because some sources place the change in November and others at the end of October, the exact day is not certain.

The letter arrangement of the LONDON line also narrows the range. On the very earliest examples, from 1918, the two lines are the same length: the "D" of DUNHILL sits directly above the "L" of LONDON. When the die was re-cut at the end of May 1919, this appearance changed; in the new layout, which began in June, the bottom line spreads to the width of the arc above it, and the "L" and "N" extend past the outer "D" and "L." One warning is in order: records say the 1985 and 2007 anniversary editions reproduced 1910-dated pipes together with their stamp, so not every pipe reading DUKE ST. S.W. is from the early period.

Patent Numbers and Secondary Stamps

The other face of the shank usually carries a patent reference. British patent 5861/12, for the removable inner tube, was applied for in 1912 and granted in 1913; 116989/17, covering the flange that holds the tube in the shank, was applied for in 1917 and published in 1918. On pipes bound for export, the American counterpart of the same invention reads PATENTED MARCH.9.15. Phrases such as "patent applied for" added next to the number narrow the range still further: seen together with 5861/12 it is taken to point to 1917, and together with the American reference, to 1918-1920.

The final layer is finish and quality letters. The "A" in the Bruyere series was struck both circled and bare before 1923, and unstamped without the circle from then on; between June and October 1918 a small round dot was added right after the letter. DR, used on straight-grained bowls from at least 1915, H.W indicating hand-shaping, and LB, which appeared in the war's final months, are the other markers of this period; LB's meaning as "large billiard" rests on a single source. Details of these are gathered in the Dunhill's additional stamps entry.