Bauer, F. B.
F. B. Bauer was a pipemaker active in Detroit, Michigan in the 1920's to 1940's. His pipes were stamped "F. B. Bauer" "Handmade" and "Detroit".
Information courtesy Pipesmagazine.com, via George Saratisis
F. B. Bauer was born as Franz Blasonbauer on August 27, 1866 in Vienna. At the age of 14 Franz became an articled apprentice to a master pipemaker in Vienna. Old world apprenticeship was a serious business. Franz worked from 7am until 6pm; history doesn't record which days he had to work but I would imagine it was Monday through Saturday pretty much every week. Any work demanded after 6pm would be “extra” and earn Franz a little pocket money. The basic parameters of the deal were that his master supplied food and lodging while Franz’s parents paid for his clothes. After four long years as an apprentice Franz had to appear before a board of experts for an examination of his skills. The exam was rigorous and it had to be; by the rules of the time if the board passed an apprentice and his subsequent work was substandard the experts who had examined him were forced to pay a hefty fine. Apprentices who flunked were sent back to their master for another year of labor. Franz passed and got his articles “first grade”. According to Blasonbauer, in Austria customers would insist on seeing a pipemaker's diploma before giving him their business. Needless to say Franz thought little of using machines to make pipes; production lines were anathema to his entire approach.
For some time after leaving his master in about 1885 Franz worked at a shop bearing the prestigious honor Kaiserlicher und Koeniglicher Hoflieferant, a designation only held by highly esteemed artisans and businesses selected as purveyors to the Austrian Emperor, at that time Franz Joseph. Evidently the prospects of Imperial Vienna weren’t enough to keep him there, for in late January of 1893 Franz left Europe for good setting sail from Rotterdam on the SS Spaarndam. On February 4, 1893 he debarked the ship in New York, and was processed at the then relatively new immigration facilities on Ellis Island.
Franz stayed in the NYC area for over a decade, being listed in various documents as a turner, amber turner, and moulder. By no later than 1916 he had moved to Detroit, where he was listed as a pipemaker and repairman; with few exceptions (the major one being a brief stint in Buffalo in 1925) Detroit remained Franz's home until he died there on December 30, 1945. City directories make it clear that like many old world craftsmen Franz plied his trade until the end of his life. Although married for over half a century Franz left no children behind to carry on the family business. Franz is remarkably difficult to track once he’s in America, mostly because he changed his name back and forth several times from Franz Blasenbauer to Franz Bauer to Franz B Bauer, to Frank Bauer, to Frank B Bauer. Records have to be searched under all these variants to find where he was and when, and even then there are gaps. I assume that “F B Bauer” was chosen for his business as easier to spell and remember than his original name, but of course that’s just a guess. As a rough rule of thumb he went by Franz Blasenbauer in earlier documents and listings and by Frank B Bauer in later ones. Since Franz was located at the same place for almost three decades it's impossible to date his pipes. Theres is no way of knowing if the nomenclature changed, or when. For what it's worth Franz comes across as pretty cantankerous and set in his ways; I would think if he thought the nomenclature was good enough when he moved to Detroit circa 1916 it was probably good enough for him until the day he died in 1945.
