James Upshall Empire Old England Magnum Dublin 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.

Similarly to their contemporaries at Ashton and Ferndown, James Upshall pipes were, on average, larger than traditional Anglo-French factory pipes. Even larger still were James Upshall’s magnum-sized pipes, known as the Empire Series. The Empire Series was exclusively for such magnums, and were furthermore exemplars for the mastery of the workshop’s craftsmen when it came to shaping and to chasing the finest grain patterns around. This necessitated so much time and energy per pipe, as well as the large, consistently high-quality blocks of briar needed to make them, that production was extremely limited. The Old England, as seen here, was essentially a super-sized P grade, whose graining was accentuated by a contrast stain inspired by the old Charatan Perfection line. This one is a very large, short-stemmed Dublin, also much in the vein of the Charatan freehands Barry Jones turned during the Reuben and Lane eras. Its bowl is, as one would expect, lined with 360 degrees of straight grain and topped with a halo of bird’s-eye.

This pipe is completely unsmoked.

 

Details:

Length: 8″ / 203.2mm

Bowl Width: 0.95 / 24.13mm

Bowl Depth: 2.08″ / 52.83mm

Weight: 4.1oz / 118g