Stanwell Reg Era (c. 1960s-1970s) Silver S 86 Smooth Dublin Estate Briar Pipe, Unsmoked

Description

Stanwell is one of Denmark’s most celebrated and enduring pipe companies, having been founded by Poul Nielsen shortly after the second world war. Over the last six decades, Stanwell has established itself as both a leader in innovative Danish design and for producing well-priced pipes with precision construction and engineering. Many of its designs were created for the company by iconic pipe-makers in the Scandinavian scene, such as Sixten Ivarsson, Anne Julie, Jess Chonowitsch, and Tom Eltang.

The “Silver S” was, for a long time, one of the highest-grade Stanwells money could buy. Distinguished by their excellent grain patterns, pipes of a Silver S grade wore their titular stem logo long before Stanwell’s adoption of brass and other metal variations became the norm in the 1980s and 1990s, back during a time when just about every other Stanwell pipe was stamped with a simple, thin white script. This one takes the form of Stanwell’s shape “86,” one of a number of distinctly squat and wide shapes designed for the company by Sixten Ivarsson in the 1960s and 1970s. Some of these shapes were closer to the traditional diplomat, such as the “91” and “922 “Ukulele” designs; some were nearer to the tomatoes and authors, like the “90”; and others still were closer to the Dublin, like this one, the “86,” and its even wider sibling, the “95.” Each was significant in its own way, and in this instance, shapes like the “86” were trailblazing examples of what we today often simply call a “Danish Dublin”—you can practically see the pipes of Jess Chonowotisch (an early Ivarsson apprentice), Hansen & Noltensmeier’s S. Bang, and Nanna Ivarsson (Sixten’s granddaughter), for example, if you look at this one hard enough. It’s no wonder that it remained in Stanwell’s catalog for far longer than most other shapes, given its equal measure of beautiful and historical significance. As for when precisely this particular “86” was made, the closest I can narrow it down to would be between the 1960s and 1970s, after which the abridged registration number stamp featured on this one was retired.

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

Details:

Length: 5.2″ / 132.0mm

Bowl Width: 0.85″ / 21.59mm

Bowl Depth: 1.24″ / 31.49mm

Weight: 1.4oz / 42g