Charatan’s Make Reuben Era Special 4402 Smooth Canadian 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 (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).

While Charatan remains famous for its straight grain pipes, there was still a place within the make’s grading schemes for other kinds of beautiful briar patterns. The Special was one such grade which, during the legendary Lane era (to which this pipe belongs), boasted “Perfection in graining in a natural finish.” Sometimes this was superior cross-grain, sometimes bird’s-eye, and sometimes flame grain. This one looks to be a mixture of the three and is indeed a very beautiful pipe. It’s also quite an old one, though deceptively so. While it does feature the Lane Ltd. “L” nomenclature, the pipe will have been made during the last years of the “Reuben era” (from around 1955 to 1960), rather than the Lane era (from around 1961 to 1976) that followed. This was a time when Reuben Charatan still owned and operated F. Charatan & Son, but Herman Lane’s Lane Ltd. had exclusive US distribution rights, which the Lane Ltd. logo originally represented. Key to this distinction is that the pipe is a shape “4402,” but is absent of any “DC” (used for Lane’s proprietary Double Comfort mouthpiece) or “X” (used for Lane era pipes without the Double Comfort) suffix. In other words, it’s a group 4 Canadian from Reuben’s tenure at the helm (Reuben himself, strangely enough, termed it a “Lumberman,” though for the sake of keeping things simple I’m going to overrule him on this one).

The condition is great. A slight scratch on the rim and minor handling marks.

Details:

Length: 6.1″ / 154.9mm

Bowl Width: 0.90 / 22.86mm

Bowl Depth: 1.87″ / 47.49mm

Weight: 1.9oz / 56g