The General and the Captain: Two Period Pipes of the Early Twentieth Century: Difference between revisions

“Shrewd observers have even declared that Dawes’s conspicuous addiction to tobacco, which has led him to design a special pipe, and his rough language have cost the party many a vote in old-fashioned American families” (“The Current of Opinion,” ''Current Opinion'', October, 1924).

“Sometimes in a manufacturing industry a by-product becomes almost as valuable as the main article. …Which brings us to Gen, Dawes’s pipe, that looks upside down but isn’t. They admire the general very much over in Europe, and, naturally, when a man is admired he is imitated, at least in his most salient characteristics. That, with general, was his funny pipe. Now all Paris Is smoking pipes, and as Paris goes so goes France. The pipe of the author of the ‘Dawes plan’ is copied widely and enthusiastically as was the ‘imperial’ or pointed beard, of Napoleon III some 60 years ago. …It is only fair to add that former Premier Herriot and Premier Baldwin of Great Britain—pipe-pullers both—helped Gen. Dawes a little in bringing back the pipe to popularity” (“Gen. Dawes’s Pipe,” ''The Pathfinder'', May 30, 1925). </blockquote>

“Marshal Foch, commander-in-chief of the allied armies during the world war, claims the distinction of converting Charles G. Dawes, then a brigadier-general in the A.E.F., to the use of a pipe. He told two Legionnaires today [September 27]: ‘I converted him. Now he has become such a fervent pipe-smoker that he has had special kinds of pipes made for him. He has sent me a number of them” (“Where That Dawes Pipe Came From Originally,” ''Tobacco'', October 6, 1927).   

“Hell ‘n’ Maria, an underslung pipe, and a refusal to wear knee breeches as an ambassador—these, if we may judge from the newspaper obituaries, seem to be the things for which General Charles G. Dawes will be remembered by the general public” (Don K. Price, “General Dawes and Executive Staff Work” ''Public Administrative Review'', Vol. 11, No. 3, Summer, 1951). “General Dawes was a rambunctious, craggy-faced military man of the old school. An inveterate pipe smoker, he found the standard plumbing arrangement of briars both hazardous and often literally distasteful” (''Men’s Wear'', Vol. 153, 1966).   

<blockquote>Adding to his colorful personality, Dawes at this time adopted his trademark pipe. For years he had smoked as many as twenty cigars a day, but during the war a British officer had given him a pipe. Soon after his appointment to the Bureau of the Budget, a newspaper photograph showed him smoking his pipe on the Treasury Department steps. A Chicago pipe manufacturer sent him a new, strangely shaped pipe with most of its bowl below rather than above the stem. Dawes tried it, liked it, and ordered a gross more. From then on, he was rarely seen without this distinctive pipe, which together with his wing-tip collars and hair parted down the middle, reinforced his individualistic, iconoclastic, and idiosyncratic public image (yearofdawes.blogspot.com).</blockquote>

Rummaging around the Web, I found an ad in a trade journal for the Lyon Pipe, made by the Lyon Mfg. Co., 5911 South Kendzie Avenue, Chicago Illinois: “The Lyon Pipe with the Spiral Coil—$2. The Lyon Pipe separates smoke from sludge by gravity. All the sludge is deposited in chamber below. The smoke ascends through 20 inch coil to exit above. The Lyon Pipe smokes all the tobacco. No wet heel or dry throat. The same flavor, aroma and coolness from all the tobacco” (''The Railroad Trainman'', January 1921). This one must have been an early prototype that C. H. Lyon manufactured prior to the issue of U.S. Patent No. 1,468,306 on September 18, 1923. The U.S. Patent Office lists Charles H. Lyon of Chicago, Illinois, as having filed for this patent three years earlier, in September 1920.  

The Lyon was introduced in 1924. “The Lyon pipe, now more commonly known as the Dawes pipe, was characterized by an inner bowl which was threaded into an outer bowl, with smoke traveling through the bottom of the inner bowl to reach the airway much as in a traditional gourd calabash” (“The Lyon Pipe,” pipedia.org). “Men are smoking the ‘Hell and Maria’ pipe, as the low slung tobacco receptacle General Dawes adorns has been dubbed by the manufacturer…” (“Commercial Banks Buy Commercial Paper at 3 Per Cent,” Commercial West, August 23, 1924). “In offering the Lyon Pipe at $1.50 to the smoker, the Kaufmann Brothers & Bondy house, of 33 East 17th street, New York, tell him to ‘smoke the pipe–not merely the shape!’” The Dawes was promoted as “The Pipe Sensation of the Age—Not a Passing Fad.” (Montgomery Ward & Co. catalogs of the mid-1920s advertised the “Genuine Lyon’s Pipe” at $1.29. Same shape as above, without special smoke circulating bowl, 85¢, while the Jordan Marsh Company of Boston sold it at the outrageous price of $2.50.)

The Campaign Pipe is WDC’s version of the General Dawes.

I suggest that you read two posts on pipesmagazine.com: Seacaptain: “Coolidge, Dawes, and the Lyon Pipe in the 1924 Campaign,” and a fascinating bit of history told by kingbilliard, “Pipes that made history: lesson #2,” an account about John Dillinger and Dawes.  

This is Model 863 in the Gisclon clay pipe factory catalog, Lille, France, c. 1870s; Pipe Santé means “health pipe.”  

If the Pipe Santé G.de Cap.ne Warren was a production pipe in the late 1800s, it would suggest that the Captain Warren pipe was a French design. But why would a French clay pipe maker assign an English name to one of his pipe designs? Could this pipe be the very first Captain Warren? Unfortunately, I found no other illustration of a French clay pipe in this shape and of that timeframe. Consider, though, that that the Captain Warren briars from Adolph Frankau & Co. were described as “Health” briars in its Catalogue, No. XX 1912.  

Unfortunately, the body of the pipe is missing, but if this inner bowl is an accurate provenance, then there’s some evidence that a British Captain Warren briar pipe preceded the production of the Lyon pipe by many years. What is not common knowledge is that a French clay pipe may have been the inspiration for the British Captain Warren.  

These two Captain Warrens are from an early Barling catalog.  

In the early 1900s, K&P made the Captain Warren called the “Fiscal” pipe. ''Loewè’s Illustrated Price List and Catalogue'' (1910) includes the “Capt. Warren,” and here’s a 1907 edition from Benson & Hedges.  

And, in that same era, the Captain Warren was popular enough that it was also produced in meerschaum by several British pipe factories.  

Sometime in the 1930s, the British Buttner Pipe Company of Glasgow introduced its system pipe. Was it a revival of a sort of Captain Warren-like Bakelite pipe that “solves every pipe problem”? One could conclude that the Brits were more enamored with this shape than our American pipe factories, but I have no solid evidence to make this assertion.

Here’s an interesting comparison. Frankau had its Captain Warren “Health” pipe, and this is a 1950s Kaywoodie Doctor’s pipe. (It sure looks a Captain Warren!)   

[[File:Kaywoodie 1955 Catalog doctorspipeAd.jpg|thumb|600px|center|Courtesy, pipedia.org]]

As this narrative indicates, the Dawes eventually fell out of favor and became a here-today-gone-tomorrow pipe format. Conversely, very little attention was given to the Captain Warren pipe in almost the entire 20th Century. How ironic that, today, it is alive and well. Cavicchi, Paronelli, Viprati, and others are crafting their own variations. There’s a very authentic Savinelli estate Captain Warren on offer at Smoker’s Haven. It is not my style to openly criticize smokingpipes.com, but I am surprised to read this: “Captain Warren Sandblasted Cherrywood (S2) Tobacco Pipe. Crafted 20 years ago, this novel briar is known as the Captain Warren, but it’s also, over the years, been known as the Lyon pipe, the Dawes pipe, or simply, the General” (smokingpipes.com). And this: the “Ser Jacopo: Captain Warren Smooth Cherrywood (L1)” (smokingpipes.com) that exhibits a very flat bottom. There are variants, of course, such as “Ser Jacopo: Historica Spongia Capt Warren Sandblasted Bent Egg Calabash (11) (S3Tobacco Pipe)” from smokingpipes.com.

This is a Ser Jacopo Captain Warren disassembled.  

The Chacom’s Lyon No 41 pipe is something else altogether.

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