A. Oppenheimer & Co Keystone Smooth Billiard Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates

Description

From the nomenclature, I think this pipe was made by A. Oppenheimer & Co., and from the style and the bone condenser, I’d estimate that it was made a long time ago—possibly a century. Oppenheimer itself grew out of a family whose ventures in pipes were some of the most significant in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 19th, Charles, Adolphe, and David Oppenheimer, along with Charles’s brother in law, Louis Adler, formed a holding group together and began investing and forging connections with pipe makers in England and France. Adolphe later set up A. Oppenheimer & Co., through which factories were built and numerous acquisitions were made, beginning with GBD (1902), then BBB (1920), and various others after Adolphe Oppenheimer founded Cadogan Investments Ltd. The rest, as they say, is history. Where this Keystone fits into all of this is hard to say. If I had to guess, it would be somewhere in the early inter-war years, after A. Oppenheimer & Co. had finished setting up its London factory, but before attention was focused on the many brands Oppenheimer’s Cadogan Group acquired in the years that followed.

The condition is remarkably good. Some wear to the inner rim and slight handling marks.

Details:

Length: 5″ / 127.0mm

Bowl Width: 0.74 / 18.79mm

Bowl Depth: 1.40″ / 35.56mm

Weight: 0.9oz / 28g