Dunhill 1999 Bruyere 922 Smooth Billiard Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates, 9mm

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.

Dunhill was relatively late coming into the 9mm filter market, all things considered, to the point where, even after its standardization of shape codes in the 1970s and 1980s, the company still used completely separate codes for 9mm-bore models. Perhaps Dunhill was still figuring out how to maintain its classical, slight and slender aesthetics during this time but, either way, it would only be in the 21st century that filter variants simply took on the “F” designation after their entry into the main standardized system. This Bruyere from 1999 appears to have been one of the last of its kind, being a shape 922 in the group 5 size bracket. It’s a little more muscular than Dunhill pipes tend toward, though it loses nothing of the make’s usual elegance in being so—especially with all of the bird’s-eye it bears.

The condition is good. Some rim charring and some finish fading. I’m not sure whether the band is original, but if it isn’t, it’ll have been a purely cosmetic addition by a previous owner, as the shank shows no sign of cracks. As it does come from the 1990s, I also wonder whether it might just be an original collar of a non-silver (or gold) variety, which Dunhill did experiment with at the time.

Details:

Length: 6.3″ / 160.0mm

Bowl Width: 0.89 / 22.60mm

Bowl Depth: 1.55″ / 39.37mm

Weight: 1.6oz / 48g