Ben Wade Leeds Era Selected Grain 44 Smooth Bent Billiard Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates

Description

Ben Wade was founded, as might be expected, by Leeds-based English pipe merchant Benjamin Wade in 1860. Soon after, Wade opened his own workshop to produce quintessentially British pipes. As one of the first makes to create pipes from briar, Ben Wade has a special place in pipe history, one only made more special by the famously high-quality of their output.

When you trade in estate pipes, most of the Ben Wades you see are actually Charatans or Preben Holms. In other words, most pre-owned Ben Wade pipes in circulation today were made by Charatan, where the make was used as a sub-brand for Charatan pipes, or in the workshop of Preben Holm, where the make was used for Danish freehand pipes. Both uses can be traced back to Herman Lane’s veritable tobacco empire Lane Ltd., which acquired Ben Wade in the early 1960s and contracted Holm in the early 1970s. But before Lane Ltd. entered the picture, Ben Wade was a venerable make in its own right, producing what were likely the most well-regarded pipes in the north of England. This one belongs to that “Leeds era” of Ben Wade pipes, and it is also one of the make’s higher end lines, the Selected Grain. It is definitely a beaut, not just because of the flame grain around the bowl, but owing to its markedly old-fashioned shaping. A full bent billiard that leans very close to an Oom Paul (without quite crossing that threshold), it takes on a drastic, yet still graceful curvature from bowl to button. Speaking of buttons, this may well be a pre-WWII Ben Wade, as the “orific” style of the stem’s tip is very much keeping with early 20th century pipe design.

The condition is good. Some inner rim charring, slight handling marks, and faint (though legible) nomenclature in some parts.

Details:

Length: 6.0″ / 152.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.80 / 20.32mm

Bowl Depth: 1.63″ / 41.40mm

Weight: 1.4oz / 42g