James Upshall Empire Old England Magnum Cup and Saucer 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.

One fascinating thing about the recent, quite substantial, batch of estate James Upshall pipes we’ve had in recently has been seeing Barry Jones returning to his iconic “cup and saucer” motif in their design. To recap: The “Cup and Saucer” is an old genre of Charatan freehands, though the first one ever carved there was by a young Barry Jones, back when he was still an apprentice under Reuben Charatan. 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. The result was something that looked like a “cup” resting on a “saucer.” Jones’s colleagues ere impressed, as were Reuben Charatan and his store manager, who requested a dozen for him to sell.

When Jones and the Barnes family started their own workshop, they would still make a cup and saucer pipe every so often, with Barry continuing to tinker with novel approaches to its basic form. With this magnum Empire Series Tradition version, the plateaux briar block used for the bowl has been carved “upside down,” as it were, allowing for the bare burl to express itself at the “saucer’s” base. It has also been fitted with a cumberland stem, which was rare (and a premium) at the Tilshead workshop.

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

 

Details:

Length: 7.3″ / 185.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.78 / 19.81mm

Bowl Depth: 1.64″ / 41.65mm

Weight: 2.7oz / 78g