James Upshall Bark Rusticated Cup and Saucer Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates

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.

This is an interesting pipe on a number of levels. It is a great mixture of currents in James Upshall history that I’ve spoken about at length in previous listings, so I apologize if I repeat myself. But it all bears repeating to understand this particular pipe.

The first interesting thing about it is that it is a rusticated pipe. If you’ve been following MBSD Pipes listings, you’ll have seen quite a few rusticated James Upshalls, except most of them were not rusticated like this. Most of the rusticated pipes in the history of the Tilshead workshop wore finishes that were more like the Ferndown Bark series and, curiously enough, the James Upshall version was also called “Bark.” Whether Barry Jones was influenced by his good friend, Les Wood, in creating that finish is something I have speculated on elsewhere. But there was another “Bark” before the Ferndown-esque one, which can be seen here. The origins of this rustication are more concretely known, thanks to recollections from Ken Barnes made a few years before his untimely passing. Per Barnes, while the Tilshead Pipe Co. only made smooth pipes during its first decade, around 1987 the decision was made to branch out and manufacture a small number of rusticated pipes as well. In this instance, the inspiration for the type of rustication used was not English, but Italian, and it was the Italians themselves who shared the finishing techniques involved with Barnes and Jones (in terms of which Italians, Barnes vaguely remembered a connection to Ser Jacopo). So, in the grand scheme of things, this is an early rusticated James Upshall pipe, possibly from the end of the 1980s, given its minimal stamping.

Another interesting thing about this James Upshall is the shaping. In the English freehand tradition, it would be called something like a “Cup and Saucer,” given the resemblance of the bowl to such (you can insert your own joke about the English and their love of tea here). The shape originated at Charatan around the late 1950s and was something of a “happy accident,” with a young Jones being its creator. The story goes that, during a lunch break, and purely on a whim, Jones took an unfinished Charatan shape 44 “Giant Bent” that had ended up in the “rejects” bin upon the discovery of its many sandpits. Jones had the idea to simply sand off as much of the pitted briar as possible and see what kind of pipe could be salvaged from it. Jones ended up with a shape not unlike this one, and Reuben Charatan was so impressed with it that he took the pipe down to Charatan’s retail shop to show to the manager there. The manager was equally impressed, asked for 12 more to sell, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The condition is great. Some rim darkening, but nothing major.

 

Details:

Length: 7.2″ / 182.8mm

Bowl Width: 0.87 / 22.09mm

Bowl Depth: 1.81″ / 45.97mm

Weight: 2.2oz / 64g