Dunhill nomenclature again
John Chambers
none of my pipes seem to match the PCCA dating/nomenclature guide on the
web.
Can anyone tell me what these numbers mean, and the date of the pipe. It is
a large (I think) bent billiard, smooth finish.
Left side:
48063 DUNHILL
BRUYERE
Right side:
MADE IN
ENGLAND17 (17 is underlined)
The PCCA guide (at http://www.pipeguy.com/dun-2.html) confused me because
this pipe does not seem to fit the exact description (the only underlined 17
also had a patent #).
Also most info seems to refer to a 4 digit number, and NONE of my Dunhills
have four digit numbers (two have 3 digit numbers, and this one has 5
digits). There is no "circled" group number on this pipe.
Help?
---------------------------------------------------------------
John Chambers
Arlington, Texas
www.netcom.com/~jchamb/
----------------------------------------------------------------
RC Hamlin
John:
Your pipe is a 1977 Vintage - for modern Dunhill's dating them is very easy,
just start with 1960 and add the dating digit(s). 1967 = 7, 1977 = 17, 1987
= 27, 1997 = 37. Do not get hung up on underlines, dots, big/small digits
etc for modern Dunhill's, just use 1960 as a vase and add the dating number
to it - simple.
As far as the 5 digit pipe number (48063) you have a group 4 or "medium"
Dunhill. I have a whole briefcase full of Dunhill material from the Dunhill
achieves, factory, Lane, etc. One of these days I'll retire and write that
online book I've been trying to do for years. The most interesting item I
have is an actual "stamp" guide from the factory that "signed in" each stamp
that Dunhill received from 1922 to 1980 (ish) - a LOT of stamps were used,
not always as picture perfect as a written "guide" would have to believe.
Very few people outside of Dunhill have seen this stamp guide, some
authorized, some have seen my copy and used it without fully studying it,
either way....Dunhill's are not "perfect" in their nomenclature.
The 5 digit shape number was introduced around 1975 to "improve" the
original 2 & 3 digit (letters and/or numbers) Dunhill shapes, it worked so
well that it was discontinued around 1978 in favor of the current 4 digit
shape numbers which are really very simple. The modern shape numbers give
the size (1st digit), stem type (2nd digit, 1=taper, 2=saddle) and shape
number (last 2 digits). Example: a Billiard is shape #03 so a 4103 would be
a group 4, taper bit billiard. Change that to 5203 and you have a group 5,
saddle bit billiard. ODA's use their original 8xx shape numbers and you will
see things like HT (hand turned) with no shape number but usually a circled
group number (5), etc.
FWIW
--
RC Hamlin, PCCA
www.pipesmoke.com & www.pipeguy.com
"John Chambers" <jch...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:8dmkiq$dao$1...@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net...
John Chambers
Thanks so much again for the Dunhill information. Whenever you find the
time to write that online guide, I'm sure it will get a LOT of use from us
baffled owners. I like the PCCA work done so far, but it just seems that my
pipes never fit the described categories.
And thanks for your clarification of the year numbers. I kept reading the
online documentation about the underlines, versus the non-underlines, and
that was what was confusing me.
Now, the shape numbers SEEM to make sense. This group 4 pipe is a HECK of a
lot larger than my group 3 though.
So, one final query... If the 4 in '48063' is the group size, then what is
the 8? I'ts not the stem type (I don't think). And that leaves the '063',
but I don't have a '063' on the shape chart.
(Sure hope I don't "go to the well one too many times") :-)
John C Loring
Actually I am ever increasingly impressed with the consistency of Dunhill
nomenclature & have come to the conclusion that few manufacturers of any
product can match Dunhill in that regard over the past century. In the past
when I would come across a stamping that didn't fit my understanding I would
usually respond with the old saw 'well some one at the factory screwed up'
but I have since reached the point where in those situations I conclude
rather that it is more likely that my understanding is not as complete as I
thought.
Aside for the passage of the pipemakers that actually stamped the older
dunhill pipes, the greatest problem is that most of the records that could
assist us today were lost during WWII. In terms of stampings we are
basically left with four documents:
1) a tattered partial page that was apparently given to the Duke Street
store clerks in the early 1920's to help date pipes from the teens - no
doubt for guarantee purposes. Arguably the most valuable of remnants as it
is questionable whether we would have been able to glean the dating sequence
of those early years but for its survival.
2) a partial stamp inventory from the factory - It essentially covers most
years from '24 until past the '70s and consists of various stamp imprints on
a page, with one or more pages devoted to each year. About the only way to
really understand it is to in effect reverse the year by year organization
and instead reorganize it by individual stamp type noting the year recorded
for each type. When this is done one quickly realizes that what was thought
to be complete, is not, and when one compares the reorganized inventory to
pipes of known date, especially non standard ones such as "DR"s one realizes
further that a number of stampings were in fact never recorded, much less
explained, in the 'inventory'. The principal value of the inventory is
that in conjunction with a review of actual pipes in various collections it
allows us to put 'date of use' parameters on the various stampings of patent
number, especially for Shells - something invaluable when the date code
itself is not easily read or has been rubbed off. It was also key to
understanding the "mystery" of how 1951 pipes were stamped and why.
Otherwise, once understood, it is essentially a very occasional verification
tool - I haven't thought to refer to it myself for close to two years.
3) catalogs/advertisements - the pre WWII catalogs often give us a good view
of the nomenclature. Pipes pictured in any given catalog will span a number
of years (e.g. Duke Street stampings are visible in late 1920s catalogs) but
ancillary stampings, particularly on difficult to find today, high end
pieces (e.g. Dress, HWs, ODs) are sometimes visible. Similarly we know how
the original circa 1905 'windshield' pipe was stamped because the stampings
are visible in advertisements of the day.
4) Dunhill Store/Collectors Dating Guide - Dunhill prepared a year by year
dating guide (beginning in either 1925 or 1930) for its stores and at around
the same time some US collectors developed a guide in the same format. The
old store guide may be found in Hacker's recent Rare Smoke book. I am not
sure which came first or if they came together but they must certainly be
related. While cumbersome to use & with some errors, this guide(s) is the
mother of what we have today and we would probably not have what we have
today but for this pioneering work.
With these must be coupled the pipes themselves for in the end reading,
understanding and building on these handful of pre war documents is a
continuing process of going from the pipes to the documents, then back
again and then still back again another time.
My personal interest basically is in the pre WWII dunhill pipe. Perhaps
because I am more comfortable working with pipes of that era then of the
last half century I believe that in terms of nomenclature, the most
important work to be done is with the last half of the 20th century not the
first half. That is not to say that we have all the answers about the first
half century, not by any means but the unanswered questions are somewhat
ancillary. Over the next couple years I will probably put together a
'complete' pre WWII dunhill shape chart and revisit some open pre WWII
nomenclature issues, hopefully laying the groundwork for someone more
graphically inclined and financially backed to ultimately put together a
Balfour/Coffee Table type Patent Years Dunhill Pipe book. But all and all
I personally think that there is more important and more timely work to be
done with the second half, as opposed to the first half of the 20th century.
In some respects the nomenclature of the second half of the century is more
complex then the first, if only because there was a far more diverse range
of pipes (e.g. the additional finishes, the limited editions, the hand
models) and some pretty significant changes (e.g. the shape numbering
change in the mid '70s). Pipemakers who worked with the post war
nomenclature, dealer literature which actually explained the nomenclature
are both actually still around and yet in fact beyond dating which like the
first half century is pretty 'open and shut', we have a number of open
questions and certainly more so the the first half century. Since the
dunhill pipes of the second half of the century are not my central interest
these are probably not questions I will get too, but in fact these are
precisely the pipes & questions that are of most interest to the Dunhill
pipesmoker, and where IMHO there is some important work to be done that
would really be beneficial to the pipe smoking community.
John Chambers
>
GREAT!
I cannot thank you enough for doing all that research! Thanks for taking
the time to look it all up, and then type all this information for me. I am
truly grateful!
I just never thought that I would acquire a Dunhill, much less 4 of them, so
I have this urge to know what every little number and letter on the pipes
represent. You have been VERY informative!
John
(I've saved all of the answers to disk, printed them out, and backed them
up, so hopefully I won't have to ask the same question in the future!)
RC Hamlin
The 0413 using the older 413 shape number for a group 4 (04) taper bit (1)
Billiard (3).
--
RC Hamlin, PCCA
www.pipesmoke.com & www.pipeguy.com
"Michael G. Duran" <mgd...@home.adome.dome.com> wrote in message
news:VrRL4.2900$S4....@news1.rdc1.ne.home.com...
>
> RC Hamlin <rc_h...@msn.com> wrote in message
> news:OowyPqsq$GA.238@cpmsnbbsa03...
> >
> > John:
> >
> > Your pipe is a 1977 Vintage - for modern Dunhill's dating them is very
> easy,
> > just start with 1960 and add the dating digit(s). 1967 = 7, 1977 = 17,
> 1987
> > = 27, 1997 = 37. Do not get hung up on underlines, dots, big/small
digits
> > etc for modern Dunhill's, just use 1960 as a vase and add the dating
> number
> > to it - simple.
>
> I understand this, but then fail to get why my 1976 root briar is
size/shape
> coded 0413. It's a billiard, about group 3.
>
> ?
>
> Michael
>
>
Michael G. Duran
Jeff Folloder
> Michael:
>
> The 0413 using the older 413 shape number for a group 4 (04) taper bit (1)
> Billiard (3).
> --
> RC Hamlin, PCCA
> www.pipesmoke.com & www.pipeguy.com
Well then, let's try this one:
ODA
TLY
Can't figure this one out and have asked quite a few. It was made in the late
90's.
--
Jeff Folloder
"Moderation is the last refuge
of the unimaginative."
John C Loring
is
> size/shape
> > coded 0413. It's a billiard, about group 3.
Response: > The 0413 using the older 413 shape number for a group 4 (04)
taper bit (1)
> Billiard (3).
Actually, according to David Webb of Dunhill in 1995, from '76 to late '78
bowls were graded "large and small bowls within a group size" with a 4digit
shape number beginning with a "0" indicating 'small' "therefore, pipes had
either a 3 digit code of [for example] 313 or a 4 digit code of 0313 (being
slightly smaller)". However, noting that Webb's letter is two decades after
the fact, several months ago I came to the tentative conclusion that his
explanation _may_ not be exactly correct.
As I recall several months ago I dealt with a 4 digit pipe of this period
beginning with "0" that was clearly at least one if not two group sizes
larger then the numbers would otherwise indicate: i.e. not a size difference
within a group size but outside the group size. Further, I was able to also
establish that the standard dunhill inventory line in effect when the pipe
in question was made did not include a large group size model for the
particular bowl/bit shape I was looking at. Then thinking about it, I noted
that while 4 digit shape numbered pipes beginning with "0" are not uncommon
for the period then too they are not so common as one would expect if
dunhill at the time was routinely grading "large and small bowls within a
group size" and also asked myself why, from a commercial point of view,
dunhill would go to all that effort anyway given that there was no pricing
differential between large and small bowls within a group size.
Taking all of the above into account I tentatively concluded that a
beginning "0" might rather indicate that while in terms of the established
size/shape/bit line of pipes then being generally offered by dunhill, the
pipe was closest to that indicated by the last three digits, the "0"
indicated that it was in fact in someway, most likely size, outside the
generally offered dunhill line and should be specially treated for stocking
and/or pricing purposes.
However, returning to the pipe at hand, a "0413" that appears to be more a
'group 3', that pipe would certainly appear to fit with Webb's 1995
explanation of 'small & large within a group size' far better then my
thoughts, i.e. a small size group 4 billiard. The "_13" shape is a billiard
with standard mouthpiece and at least in 1975 was part of the standard
dunhill line in all (1 - 6) group sizes. So unless there is something
non-standard about the bowl shape or bit my earlier thoughts are clearly of
no application with respect to this pipe.
I have on earlier occasions suggested that while my particular interests run
to the first half of the 20th century, in fact in terms of what we don't
know about Dunhill pipes and nomenclature - the second half of the past
century is in many ways more complex and offers more questions then the
first half - and there is still time to actually ask the pipemakers that
were actually stamping the pipes. This is a case in point.
Michael G. Duran
Briar) is about my favorite, and I mostly smoke my favorite tobacco in it
(Dorchester), the size being perfect for what I like in this tobacco. The
pipe is beautifully balanced and smokes just as well.
Michael
John C Loring <lev...@voyager.net> wrote in message
news:3900810b$0$26...@news.execpc.com...