Barling’s Make YOW 251 EXEXEL Smooth Billiard Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates

Description

Barling and Sons was originally founded in 1812 by Benjamin Barling and began as a family business making silver-adorned meerschaum pipes. In the early 20th century, however, the Barling family began to produce what the brand is today most famous for – expertly made briar pipes.

As mentioned in another recent listing, family era, also known as pre-transition, Barling pipes tend to be on the smaller side, as was the fashion in the early 20th century. As the decades went by and the Barling family began making larger pipes, rather than create new size designations, they simply added more letters to existing designations. Barling’s large pipes were grouped as “L” (“large”), so pipes that were even larger were grouped as “EXL” (“extra large”). Larger still were “EXEL” (“extra extra large”) pipes. This one is an “EXEXEL,” i.e., an “extra extra extra large” pipe, at least as far as convention and precedent dictated at the time. Today, this would be considered a large billiard, more in line with, say a Dunhill ODA 835. But, as we all know, it isn’t only size that matters, especially when the pipe in question is a family era Barling.

The condition is fair. The chamber is quite over-reamed, though still serviceable, especially with the bowl coating we’ve had professionally applied. There’s also some general wear to the rim and slight finish fading, as well as a slight fading of the nomenclature (though it remains legible). The pipe’s price will reflect this.

 

Details:

Length: 6.5″ / 165.1mm

Bowl Width: 1.03 / 26.16mm

Bowl Depth: 1.6″ / 40.64mm

Weight: 1.9oz / 56g