The 1980s Fake Dunhill: Difference between revisions

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'''THE 1980S FAKE DUNHILL © JOHN C LORING''': ''used by permission''<br>

''Contributed by Jean-Christophe Bienfait''

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.

   

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Most all including the awesome canadians were fakes.

   

A particular stylistic aspect of a number of the 1980s fake Shells, thick bowl walls at the top of the bowl, also offers a useful distinguishing point as overly thick bowl walls are uncommon in earlier Dunhill Shells.  This is true even of patent number magnums, as well other larger then average pipes such as LCs, where the walls of the large bowls  tend to thin towards the top.       

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In short then while one must always remember that everything is possible, when the pipe seemingly doesn’t fit the period of its supposed carving warning lights should start to flash.  

   

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The next level of examination is for defects.  That fake ODA 844 Shell I wrote of earlier  is  an exceptional pipe with a remarkable ring grain (I parted with several hundred dollars for it), but it also has a deep, mostly hidden ‘sand pocket’ that likely would have led to its being ‘graded out’ and left unfinished by Dunhill after sandblasting.  Another fake 844, a Bruyere with a questionable beveled bottom, shows upon close examination serious briar flaws only partially carved away by the bevel, there is no way that Dunhill would have knowingly allowed that pipe to be finished in the factory much less sold under its name.  A defect of a different sort is found in a fake 847 Bruyere that in comparison with the authentic evidences an eighth of an inch ‘topping’ of the bowl, undoubtedly to eliminate a flaw.  I strongly suspect that each of these fake ODAs came from unfinished bowls ‘graded out’ by Dunhill during the course of  production in the ‘50s and ‘60s and pilfered from the factory’s ‘unfinished bowls’ storage boxes and finished up in the early ‘80s.

   

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Two other supposed pre-1952 smooth finished pipes I have seen, one purportedly a Root “LC” and the other purportedly a Bruyere “LP” (sic, whatever that may be – the pipe looks like an LC)  are distinguishable by what is not there, namely the complete MADE IN ENGLAND, patent number, date code block is missing.  It is incredible that Dunhill would release  pipes like that without that stamping block.  The absence of  expected stampings is always grounds for suspicion, especially when as with these two pipes, there is ample stamping room.

              

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The fake Shell ODAs that I have seen appear by enlarge to be correctly stamped.  There are some with tell-tale warning signs.  Most obviously ODA [over] 834 in one font overstamping an ODA [over] 824 in a different font.  Note also two fake 844 Shells with the lower portion of the D in ENGLAND clipped off at an angle.  But I suspect that of all the 1980s fakes there will be some fake post-patent number ODAs in shapes considered rarer in the 1980s then now  that will never be caught simply because they were made from correct, unflawed bowls with proper stampings.  Yet in a very real sense this is of no great concern, as made from correct, unflawed bowls with proper stampings, of all the 1980s fakes these are fakes only in the sense that they were never part of the official Dunhill retail stream.  Value wise because the shapes are no longer considered particularly rare and because the 1980s fakes carry a collectible value as such, there is probably little if any value difference which ever way they are viewed.  

   

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Returning to our two thousand dollar Dunhill rarity, having now carefully reviewed the pipe, its nomenclature and along the way asked seller for its provenance and any known flaws, its time to step back and weigh the accumulated data and ask yourself again the question you began with:  all things considered does this pipe feel right?  More often then not you will answer yourself in the affirmative, for as I wrote initially there just weren’t that many 1980s fakes.