Dunhill 1958 Shell Briar 120 Sandblasted Bent Billiard Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates

Description

To veteran pipe smokers, Dunhill needs no introduction. Beginning in 1907, Alfred Dunhill began selling Dunhill pipes at the tobacconist shop he owned on London’s Duke Street. Very quickly, these pipes gained the reputation of being the ‘Rolls-Royce’ of pipes due to how expertly crafted they were. Today, Dunhill is likely Britain’s most famous pipe manufacturer, and continues to produce some of the most treasured pipes a smoker can buy.

Not unlike another Dunhill 120 listed recently, this one is a little outside of the norm for that particular shape. As with the previous listing, John Loring’s “The Atypical LC” from The Pipe Smoker’s Ephemeris is a great resource on the 120 and other, similar, Dunhill 3/4 bent billiards. While even factory shapes such as Dunhill’s show some variation in size both within the same production cycle and across longer periods in time, the 120, not unlike the LC or EC Quaint shapes, has sometimes varied significantly in its dimensions. The basic design of the 120 is not completely unlike the LC, with both featuring a supple swan neck curvature as their centerpiece. But the 120 is typically much smaller than an LC, with a length of around 6 inches, compared to the latter’s, which comes in between 6 and 1/2 inches and 7 inches. But this is not always the case and, as can be seen here, there have been a few examples of 120 shapes that have come much closer to their Quaint counterpart. This one, from 1958, is remarkably close, being of exceptional length and height and even featuring an egg-like bowl not unlike the LC’s other defining feature. The sandblasting is deep, thorough, and exhibits a ring grain relief that almost steals the show entirely (no doubt aided by the oil-curing techniques used at the time), while giving one last nod to the iconic, patent era Dunhills that came shortly before it.

The condition is fair. Some darkening and slight charring of the inner rim, chamber slightly over-reamed, finish fading, and slight residual oxidation on the stem. Regardless, it holds up as something quite special indeed.

 

Details:

Length: 6.5″ / 165.1mm

Bowl Width: 0.90 / 22.86mm

Bowl Depth: 1.82″ / 46.22mm

Weight: 1.7oz / 50g