Dunhill 1982 Root Briar 41241 Smooth Panel Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates

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.

Dunhill’s catalog has included panel billiard, or foursquare, renditions since the interwar years, though they’ve always been less common than most other shapes in that output. From their debut until the mid-1970s, they were separated from Dunhill’s standard shapes via the “Quaint” series, a set of shapes that were only manufactured when the grain of a given block of briar was specifically suited to such a form. As such, instead of a number, they held the designation of “EK.” With the introduction of the Dunhill’s modern shape code system in the last decades of the 20th century, foursquares were given a standard shape designation, though they still remained (and continue to remain) rarer than, say, classic Dublin, billiard, or pot shapes.

This group 4 rendition comes from the early 1980s, during the initial years of Dunhill’s modern shape code system, hence the five-digit, rather than four-digit, shape code. It is essentially an “EK” by another name, retaining the old Quaint’s form and selective graining, here seen in the guise of four flat planes of bird’s-eye and cross grain.

The condition is very good. Minor rim darkening, slight finish fading, and stem slightly over-buffed at the base.

Details:

Length: 6″ / 152.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.80 / 20.32mm

Bowl Depth: 1.55″ / 39.37mm

Weight: 1.2oz / 36g