James Upshall P Grade XL Smooth Freehand 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. While James Upshall pipes are no longer made, their reputation as some of the finest hand-turned British pipes lives on.

The early post-war years led to a number of innovations in pipe manufacture, with a significant contributing factor to these innovations being a scarcity of good briar caused by the war itself. Arguably the most important of these innovations was the “freehand” pipe, whose discovery was—not unlike Newton and Leibniz’s calculus—made independently in Scandinavia and in England. Of course, there were differences in methods and styles pursued, and these differences would lessen to a degree as pipe makers across nations began to emulate one another, but this initial independence should not be disregarded. While the “Danish” freehand is said to have been inaugurated by (Sweden’s) Sixten Ivarsson, the English freehand appears to have emerged in the late 1950s, from the idle hands of a teenager named Barry Jones. The story goes that Jones, during a lunch break at his work at Charatan, took a large stummel from the “rejects” bin and sanded away its many, disqualifying sandpits. The result was odd, yet strangely alluring pipe whose bowl appeared to “rest” like a cup on a saucer—a little like the design seen here. Jones’ colleagues liked the pipe enough to encourage, to and help him, to finish it and to present it to Reuben Charatan. Reuben Charatan was impressed, and ultimately the Charatan freehand workshop was set up, and the English freehand tradition was born—a tradition that continued after Jones left Charatan to help found James Upshall. This pipe is an example of the latter, a P grade (“P” because, while the grade was analogous to Charatan’s Distinction, the stain used was modeled on its Perfection grade pipes) freehand billiard, of an extra large (EX.L) size.

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

 

Details:

Length: 6.5″ / 165.1mm

Bowl Width: 0.82 / 20.82mm

Bowl Depth: 1.52″ / 38.60mm

Weight: 2.6oz / 74g