Stanwell Reg Era XXL Smooth Freehand Estate Briar Pipe, Danish Estates

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.

While Stanwell was a pioneer and towering giant of Danish post-war pipe making, its relationship to one particular genre of Danish design has been far more sporadic than its contemporaries. That genre is what we now know simply as the “freehand” pipe, but which went by other names at different points in time, such as the “Fancy,” or “Danish Fancy.” Unlike, for example, Bari, or Nording, freehand pipes have not been a constant fixture in Stanwell’s catalog. Instead, they have been in and out of production intermittently, sometimes being produced in-house and other times being contracted out to leading Danish freehand carvers, such as Poul Winslow. Since production of Stanwell pipes moved from Borup, in Denmark, to Italy in 2010, there have not been any Stanwell freehand pipes (again, as we understand them) at all (the closest being what was actually a limited edition reissue of a slightly redesigned shape 62 Dublin a few years back).
This pipe is an example of one of Stanwell’s oldest pipes in the freehand genre, pipes which were never stamped with such a name, though which were described in marketing materials and catalogs as a “Free Hand Pipe.” But they were most certainly freehands, and indeed this is one of the freehands carved in-house at one of Stanwell’s Danish factories (either Borup or its predecessor in Kyringe). The pipe comes from around the 1960s/1970s, a significant part of which coincided with Stanwell’s freehand production being headed by Poul Hansen, a student of Sixten Ivarsson and one of the lesser-appreciated masters of Danish pipe making. The pipe is a beautiful specimen, being both tremendously large, beautifully and consistently grained, and bearing the hallmarks of the Dancy Fancy freehand style, including plateaux burl at its rim and shank and, and an ornate, double-beaded vulcanite mouthpiece.

The condition is very good. Minor inner rim darkening, handling marks, and a few slight scratches on the bowl.

Details:

Length: 8.0″ / 203.2mm

Bowl Width: 0.93 / 23.62mm

Bowl Depth: 2.46″ / 62.48mm

Weight: 4.0oz / 114g