The 1980s Fake Dunhill/fr: Difference between revisions

Change and a bit of turmoil enveloped staid Dunhill beginning in the mid 1970s. Lane Limited, including the Charatan pipe line, was purchased in 1976 and in the early 1980s the Dunhill pipe factories were consolidated with a number of pipe carvers laid off and much disgruntlement amongst those that remained. But with that consolidation not only a few pipe makers disappeared, so too pipe tools, stamping tools, raw briar, and from the company’s inventory boxes of abandoned work, some unfinished bowls as well. And at work’s-end employed and unemployed still met at the pub to dwell on the injustice of it all.

During the same period on the other side of the Atlantic a strange new hobby was developing, ‘used briar pipe collecting’, with Dunhill pipes the crown jewels of those pioneer American collections. Soon there were pipe shows, mail order lists, evenings on the telephone in ‘hot pursuit’ and even excursions to England to salvage previously smoked pipes from the dustbins. Hundreds, even thousands of dollars were paid for used, quickly renamed “Estate” Dunhills with premium prices being paid for the largest and oldest.

So there it was, in our own small way our own ‘perfect storm’: in England disgruntled Dunhill and Charatan carvers with the means at hand and in America hungry collectors with the money in hand. Needless to say somehow a connection would be made.  

Amongst the first tell tail signs in 1983 may have been a quite real Dunhill LC from the early 1920s with a worn blast, a damaged shank and barely readable nomenclature. A quarter inch snip of the shank, a rebuilt mortise and matching extended replacement bit, restained and restamped with a ‘borrowed’ stamping tool from World War II that no one would miss, and for the ‘money touch’, restamped with the very rare shape letters “LLC”.   An extra “L” that would blind most any collector to the restained worn blast and chopped shank.

But why beat the bushes in a time consuming hunt for injured rare pipes to rebuild and alter when you can make new instead. Especially when the knowledge base of this new area of collecting was still limited and mixed with myth. Other then the common ODA shapes there was a paucity of actual examples of oversized pipes. Magnums were viewed as ‘one of a kind’ rarities that could be counted on one hand, maybe two at best. The “A”, “B” and “C” of ODA, ODB and ODC were thought to stand respectively for “America”, “Bermuda” and “Canada”. Dating patent number Dunhills took on the aura of divination. Early Dunhill catalogs were largely unavailable and certainly unstudied as a whole. And most importantly up to that time no one had produced a pipe that ‘looked and smelled’ like a Dunhill, other than of course Dunhill itself.

And so in 1984 after a successful private showing it was indeed a grand debut by one of the leading collectors of the day at the premier show of the year. Thirty pipes in all including: four  near magnum sized Shells bearing extremely rare or previously unknown shape numbers;  three smooth finished “LC” shapes , two Roots and a Bruyere, one bearing a previously unknown shape number;  three extremely rare usmoked ODAs , a Bruyere and a Shell 844 and an 824 Shell; a number of sought after ODA shapes in a variety of finishes, many unsmoked; and two awesome supposedly pre WWII Canandians both upwards of 9 inches long with 5 ¾ inch shanks, a Bruyere with a small, 1 ¾ inch tall, bowl and a Shell with a magnum sized,  2 ¾ inch tall bowl.   Nothing like it had ever been seen, indeed even imagined before. It need hardly be said that the display won an award and the Shell Canadian was named ‘Best of Show’.