Charatan’s Make Belvedere 318DC Smooth Bent Billiard Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates

Description

While Dunhill may be Britain’s most famous pipe brand, Charatan is not only older, 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 (who went on to work at Dunhill, before leaving again to start the Sasieni make), Dennis Marshall (previously of Barling, later of Milville), Dan Tennison, Stan Haney (later of Ashby Hall), and Ken Barnes and Barry Jones (later of James Upshall).

Though the Belvedere was something of an “entry level” pipe, it was one that still managed to stand out against Charatan’s competitors, owing not least to its reddish-burgundy finish and better grain than many briars of the time. This one takes the form of a rather unusual shape in Charatan’s catalog, known as “381,” or the “Jerymn”—no doubt so-named because F. Charatan & Son maintained a shopfront on London’s legendary Jermyn Street. It’s somewhere between a pickaxe, an acorn, and a bent billiard, comparable to certain designs that came out of post-war Denmark, while also remaining fairly traditional. Based on the logo on the mouthpiece, I would estimate this to have been made during the first Dunhill era of around 1977-81, a time when Alfred Dunhill Ltd. had purchased F. Charatan & Son from Lane Ltd. but had not yet significantly changed the conditions of manufacture for Charatan pipes.

The condition is fair. Some rim darkening, finish fading, and slight handling marks.

Details:

Length: 5.6″ / 142.2mm

Bowl Width: 0.84 / 21.33mm

Bowl Depth: 1.52″ / 38.60mm

Weight: 1.4oz / 42g