Dunhill (1980) Cumberland 41351 Sandblasted Horn (Estate)

About this pipe:

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.

What we call “cumberland,” i.e., red and black swirl ebonite, has featured on some Dunhill pipes since the 1930s, but it was not until 1979 that Dunhill introduced a dedicated series of pipes featuring such stems. Named after a London road where Dunhill’s warehouse was located, the new Cumberland series featured a red-brown sandblast and, of course, red and black swirl ebonite stems. It is even said to be thanks to this Dunhill series that pipe smokers and pipe makers used the term so commonly today.

This particular pipe is a Cumberland-series rendition of Dunhill’s modern, “35” Zulu shape, though it’s a rather unusual one. That’s because it comes from 1980, during a brief period where Dunhill pipes were made in accordance with a standardized, 5-digit shape system, rather than the 4-digit one used today. That extra digit denoted variations on the shape denoted by each other digit in a given string. With the move to a 4-digit system, those variations all but disappeared, meaning there were a fair few Dunhill shapes that only existed for a few years between the end of the 1970s and the 1980s. In this instance, “41351” was the number used for a decidedly long twist on Dunhill’s otherwise quite short house horn design, one that hasn’t been seen since.

The condition is good. Minor inner rim darkening, finish fading, and handling marks.

Details:

Length: 6.18″ / 156.9mm

Chamber Width: 0.85″ / 21.59mm

Chamber Depth: 1.56″ / 39.62mm

Bowl Height: 1.81″ / 45.97mm

Weight: 1.4oz / 40g