Dunhill 1982 Root Briar 51021 Smooth Bent 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.

Somewhere between a mid-century 120 and an OD 840, modern Dunhill 5102 is among the company’s largest renditions of its flagship, saddle-stemmed bent billiard shape. Though Dunhill (being an eminently traditional make) manufactures pipes that are, to today’s pipe smokers often considered on the small side (in keeping with traditional, Anglo-French shaping conventions), group 5s hold up as big pipes, even now. On the other hand, such pipes are far less common than their smaller counterparts, so finding a nice, big, group 5 Dunhill can be a bit of a challenge.

Reading this, you might be wondering if I had made a slight mistake, as this pipe, a lovely Root Briar from 1982, is not a 5102. Instead, it is a 51021. There is a reason for that. See, for a short period between the mid-1970s and early 1980s, Dunhill used five-digit shape codes, rather than today’s four-digit codes, to schematize the company’s pipe designs and manufacture. This extra digit left room for variations when it came to bowl design, which could be subtle, or quite substantial, though in the case of the 51021, it was more or less the same as 5102 that followed. The former was, perhaps, a little longer, though most dimensions carried over into the latter. In any case, this one is certainly a nice example of a big, Root Briar billiard, with plenty of “bowl space” to highlight its bird’s-eye patterns, and plenty of chamber space to carry one’s favorite blend.

The condition is good. Some rim darkening, chamber slightly over-reamed at the lip, and minor handling marks.

Details:

Length: 6.9″ / 175.2mm

Bowl Width: 0.87 / 22.09mm

Bowl Depth: 1.75″ / 44.45mm

Weight: 1.9oz / 56g