Charatan’s Make Reuben Era Executive Extra Large Smooth Apple 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), Dan Tennison, Stan Haney (later of Ashby Hall), and Ken Barnes and Barry Jones (later of James Upshall).

Though it bears the “L” stamp of Herman Lane’s Lane Ltd., the style of this Charatan, along with its saddle mouthpiece, seem to point not to the Lane era, but to the late Reuben era of around 1958-1960 (the “L” was used for US distribution purposes under Lane Ltd. from 1955 onward). The majority of Charatan’s earliest freehands—of which this is an example—were closer to the classics of Anglo-French design, with this one being not far off the apple designs in Charatan’s contemporaneous catalog. Whoever turned it certainly did a good job (at the time it was Reuben Charatan, Dan Tennison, and Barry Jones carving Charatan’s freehands), securing the pipe an Executive grade within the workshop’s coveted Straight Grain output. In fact, the carver of this one did a very good job, creating not just a Straight Grain pipe, but an Extra Large one at that.

The condition is fair. Chamber slightly over-reamed, some inner rim charring, and a couple of minor scratches on the bowl.

Details:

Length: 6.4″ / 162.5mm

Bowl Width: 1.05 / 26.67mm

Bowl Depth: 1.43″ / 36.32mm

Weight: 2.4oz / 70g