Charatan’s Make Special Smooth Dublin Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates

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, and Ken Barnes and Barry Jones of James Upshall fame.

While plateau-topped freehand pipes are today largely associated with Danish pipe-making, it’s easy to forget that, contemporaneously with the post-war Danish boom, one particular, distinctly English pipe workshop was creating freehands of its own – Charatan. This particular Charatan displays many of the hallmarks of that singular workshop: a tall, Dublin-esque bowl, a longer, slender shank, beautiful straight grain and, of course, Lane Ltd’s proprietary Double Comfort stem (this particular Charatan looks to be from the later Lane era, from the stamping).

The condition is very good. Some handling marks and faint (but legible) stamping.

Details:

Length: 6.4″ / 162.5mm

Bowl Width: 1.05 / 26.67mm

Bowl Depth: 1.7″ / 43.18mm

Weight: 1.9oz / 54g