Charatan (by Dunhill) Grosvenor Sandblasted Dublin (Unsmoked Estate)

About this pipe:

While there are a fair few historic British pipe brands, Charatan is not only older than most, but has the honor of being the first to have made its pipes entirely in-house. “Charatan’s Make” referred to the fact that, at a time when other pipe companies were sourcing stummels and stems carved from other companies before assembling them in their factories and workshops, Charatan made every part of their pipes on the Charatan premises. So began a legacy of high-quality pipe-making under the Charatan name, one whose employees, at one time or another, included Joel Sasieni (later of Dunhill, then Sasieni fame), Stan Haney (later of Ashby Hall), Dennis Marshall (later of Milville), and Ken Barnes and Barry Jones (later of James Upshall).

Given that Charatan pipes have been around since the 1870s, it’s only natural that the ownership of the brand, along with the circumstances of their production, has changed a fair few times in the last 150 years or so. In the beginning, F. Charatan and Son was independently owned and operated by the Charatan family, but by the 1960s, it had been purchased by Lane Ltd., giving way to the so-called “Lane era.” Toward the end of the 1970s, Lane Ltd. sold Charatan once more to Alfred Dunhill Ltd., which took control of the company for the next decade, after which it was sold again, this time to J.B. Russell, Inc.. Finally, in the first years of the 21st century, Charatan underwent its most recent change in ownership and, oddly enough, the purchaser was Dunhill, for the second time in the make’s history.

This particular Charatan comes from that “second Dunhill era,” as it is sometimes called. It is an example of the Grosvenor, a dark, craggy sandblasted line evocative of the make’s midcentury Relief finishes, and is fitted with Charatan’s famous Double Comfort vulcanite mouthpiece. As far as I understand, the Relief—as with Charatan pipes more broadly—has been out of production for quite some time.

This pipe is completely unsmoked, with an original bowl coating, having come to us from a new old stock lot from a store closure over in Europe. As such, it comes with its original box and sleeve.

Details:

Length: 5.75″ / 146.0mm

Chamber Width: 0.77″ / 19.55mm

Chamber Depth: 1.48″ / 37.59mm

Bowl Height: 1.77″ / 44.95mm

Weight: 1.5oz / 42g