Sasieni Family Era (c.1950s-79) Fantail 95 Smooth Bulldog Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates

Along with names like Barling, Charatan, and Dunhill Sasieni holds a special place in the history of English smoking pipes—one near to its very beginnings. So the story goes, Sasieni himself worked for Dunhill during its early days. But eventually he left Dunhill, having his own ideas about how pipes should be made, and founded Sasieni. This was 1919, and Sasieni has been the closest thing to a household name in English pipes ever since.

In 1953, Sasieni secured a patent on the “Fantail” mouthpiece, a relatively novel stem design whose name derived from its “fanning” movement as it progressed from base to button. An invention of Alfred Sasieni, it was designed to be especially easy on the jaw when clenched, owing to its supreme lightness. How Alfred achieved this was quite simple, as the Fantail was a fishtail with just about everything extraneous to function removed, thus cutting down significantly on weight. This one takes the form of the “95” squat bulldog, whose counterpart in Sasieni’s other lines was the “85” (later “87”) “Hendon” (also known as the “Harrow” in its rusticated guise). I would imagine this pipe to be a “family era” make, produced before Sasieni was sold off to a consortium outside of the Sasieni family in 1979, as the shape did not feature in catalogs from the post-family era (whether as the “85,” the “87,” the “95,” the “Hendon,” or the “Harrow”). Approximate dating would thus be around the the 1950s to 1979.

The condition is good. Very minor darkening and a couple of small spots of char on the rim, some slight scratches on the bowl, and very minor tooth marks.

Details:

Length: 6″ / 152.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.78 / 19.81mm

Bowl Depth: 1.18″ / 29.97mm

Weight: 1.4oz / 42g