James Upshall A Grade Group 6 Smooth Long Shank Bent Billiard Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

Description

James Upshall was, along with Ferndown and Ashton, part of a new wave of British hand-made, high-grade pipes in the late 20th century, with their founders largely coming from previous positions in the factories of companies such as Dunhill and Charatan. James Upshall was founded in 1978 by Barry Jones and Ken Barnes, both of whom had previously worked for Charatan and who had worked their way up to being carvers Charatan’s higher-end, non-standard shapes. Jones and Barnes’ pipes quickly grew to being something of a status symbol, and were enjoyed by King Hussein of Jordan, Anwar Sadat, Bing Crosby, Yul Brynner, Robert Wagner and Tom Selleck. The company also made house-brand pipes for Astleys in London. James Upshall pipes are no longer made, but their reputation as some of the finest hand-turned British pipes continues to endure.

As I’ve mentioned many times, long shank shapes were notably prominent in James Upshall’s output. And, as I’ve also mentioned, some of the reasons this are likely to have been the case have to do with the prevalence of similar shapes made during the “Reuben era” of F. Charatan & Son. The “Newmarket” is the most obvious example of this, being a shape designed by Reuben Charatan, who took inspiration from clay pipe designs, and which featured in James Upshall’s early catalogs under the very same name. Another reason long shank shapes may have held the place they did at James Upshall is that Kennedy Barnes was particularly fond of them, with the Canadian (what Reuben called a “Lumberman”) being his absolute favorite shape. But there is another reason why James Upshall may have incorporated long shanks as much as it did, one whose origins are not in Charatan’s Reuben era, but the Lane era that followed. After all, one of Herman Lane’s famous additions to Charatan pipes was the Double Comfort mouthpiece, a patented, double-stepped saddle cut that the majority of Charatan’s output included after Lane took the reins. One interesting consequence of this is that, as Charatan pipes got larger, their shanks got longer, presumably because the cut of a Double Comfort mouthpiece was either aesthetically or practically unsuited to such inordinate lengths. Whatever the reason Charatan’s Lane era freehand pipes exhibited a marked tendency toward long shanks (or, in the case of the After Hours, extended shanks). This tendency appears to have carried over onto James Upshall, and while plenty of Barnes and Jones’ pipes had long saddle or tapered mouthpieces, a significant portion of James Upshall pipes featured long shanks, which were incorporated in much the same way as Charatan pipes did. Given that Barnes and Jones’ venture was not subject to the constraints of the Double Comfort, this continuing of a tradition is likely to have simply come down to aesthetic preference—one that James Upshall’s devotees were more than happy to embrace once more.

This pipe is completely unsmoked, with an original bowl coating.

Details:

Length: 6.8″ / 172.7mm

Bowl Width: 0.75 / 19.05mm

Bowl Depth: 1.58″ / 40.13mm

Weight: 2.3oz / 68g