Barling’s Make Pre-Transition 1127 Smooth Billiard Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates

Description

B. Barling and Sons was originally founded in 1812 by Benjamin Barling and began as a family business making silver-adorned meerschaum pipes. In the late 19th century, however, the Barling family began to produce what the brand is today most famous for—expertly made briar pipes.

If one was to list the most esteemed and prized British pipe brands ever produced, it’s pretty certain that Barling would be in the top five. More specifically, it would be “pre-transition,” “family era” Barling pipes that held this stature, i.e., pipes made by the Barling family during their ownership and management of the B. Barling and Sons company. Thanks to Barling historians such as Jonathan Guss, Tad Gage, and Jesse Silver, collectors have a relatively simple time of separating these pipes from the ones that came later (see our guide on the MBSD Pipes main hub for a quick and easy rundown of these findings). For example, as this one is stamped “BARLING’S” in an arch over “MAKE,” and as it is specified as a shape 1127, it falls well within the “family era” having been manufactured prior to the transition in ownership in 1960 and the transition in management in 1962, after which the Barling family were dismissed from the company entirely. As this Barling lacks a size stamp, it is also possible that it was made prior to the end of WW2. Based on the “Preedy” stamping on the opposite side of the shank to the Barling nomenclature, this pipe will have been made for A. Preedy & Sons, also known as Preedy’s. Preedy’s was a very successful chain of tobacconists shops across the West Midlands country in England, between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries (in fact, there was once a museum exhibition dedicated to Preedy’s near Birmingham in the 2000s, which our Product Manager remembers passing by a few times in his slightly younger days).