James Upshall B Grade Tradition Smooth Spiral Freehand 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. Sadly, James Upshall pipes are no longer made, but their reputation as some of the finest hand-turned British pipes lives on.

This is a rather strange James Upshall, I must say. It’s a marvel of a pipe, that’s for sure, with remarkable straight grain and a masterful interlacing of that grain into a highly elaborate, stepped and spiral carved freehand billiard shape. The nomenclature, however, appears contradictory. For one, it’s stamped as a B grade, a qualification reserved for James Upshall’s high-grade pipes and for pipes that were, per Ken Barnes, comparable to a Charatan Executive as far as quality went. On the other hand, it’s also stamped as a Tradition, a different high-grade from the Empire Series and one which, when the workshop finally closed, was essentially a magnum-sized A grade. The stamping is also a little slapdash, even if the pipe itself isn’t, and appears to have been double-stamped on both the “B” and the “James Upshall” nomenclature. So, what is this pipe? I have some theories. For one, this is an early James Upshall, and a clue to that is, funnily enough, in its otherwise mysterious, double-stamped nomenclature. This is because the nomenclature on most James Upshall pipes was not stamped at all (at least, the briar parts of the nomenclature). Instead, it was engraved. Per Ken Barnes, James Upshall nomenclature was stamped manually until around 1983-4. But around this time, the workshop was introduced to pantograph engraving by their US distributor, Pete Siegel, which is why the nomenclature on later James Upshall pipes is a different color to the rest of the briar (by virtue of being exposed, unfinished briar, versus the finish on the rest of the bowl). Barnes also stated that high-grades during his time at James Upshall had the iconic stem logo put on in gold, as this one has. Given that the “A” grade did not exist until after 1989, I wonder whether “Tradition” meant something different back in the late 1970s/early 1980s. Perhaps a magnum-sized B grade? Or, simply a catch-all for magnum-sized pipes? Who knows. It’s a heck of a pipe either way.

The pipe is also completely unsmoked.

Details:

Length: 6.5″ / 165.1mm

Bowl Width: 0.86 / 21.84mm

Bowl Depth: 1.85″ / 46.99mm

Weight: 1.9oz / 54g