Dunhill 1968 Root Briar 710 Smooth Billiard Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates

Description

To veteran pipe smokers, Dunhill needs no introduction. Beginning in 1907, Alfred Dunhill began selling Dunhill pipes at the tobacconist shop he owned on London’s Duke Street. Very quickly, these pipes gained the reputation of being the ‘Rolls-Royce’ of pipes due to how expertly crafted they were. Today, Dunhill is likely Britain’s most famous pipe manufacturer, and continues to produce some of the most treasured pipes a smoker can buy.

When Alfred Dunhill first began manufacturing his own pipes, the only line available was the Bruyere, a smooth polished finish with what would soon come to be an iconic, a dark, reddish stain. Around 1917, the Dunhill catalog was expanded to include a new line, the Shell Briar, which wore an even darker, burgundy top-coat over a patented, sandblast relief finish. It would be 1 years until Dunhill unveiled its third line of pipes (provided we count the Dead Root as, originally, a Bruyere variant), the Root Briar. Debuting in Root Briar commanded the highest premium of the three, wearing a minimal, natural finish intended to showcase the superior graining of the Corsican briar briar used. As a result, and as I’ve mentioned a few times before, Dunhill Root Briars tend to have extraordinary bird’s-eye patterns, comparable to the high-grade “Occhio di Pernice” pipes found in the Italian handmades scene—such as Castello, Radice, and the like. That would be the case for this pipe, a rather stout billiard rendition made at the tail-end of an especially well-regarded decade in Dunhill’s history.

The condition is good. Some rim darkening, chamber slightly over-reamed, and faded nomenclature.

Details:

Length: 5.9″ / 149.8mm

Bowl Width: 0.91 / 23.11mm

Bowl Depth: 1.47″ / 37.33mm

Weight: 1.3oz / 38g