1960s BBB Rare Grain 507 Smooth Dublin Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates

Description

‘BBB’ originally stood for ‘Blumfeld’s Best Briars’, so named after Louis Blumfeld after he took over the historic Alfred Frankenau Company in 1856. Later, the pipes came to be known as ‘Britain’s Best Briars’. Though the name might have changed, the quality of the pipes did not – they really were fantastic pipes, made in the classic style of the English-French shape chart. Like GBD, Dunhill, and Barling’s, BBB are pipes with a rich history behind them, proudly holding the title of “the oldest trade mark in the [pipe] industry.”

Pipe-makers like to extol the virtues of the quality of briar used in their pipes, and modern pipes are replete with claims as to how good the grain is on a particular model. This “Rare Grain,” on the other hand, from English make BBB, is more deserving of such a title. It is indeed not common to find factory-made pipes that have the level of consistency in their grain that this one does (though BBB in its prime was hardly just another factory). Its bowl is surrounded by consistent, vertical, straight grain and flame grain patterns, and even its shank has its own brilliant bird’s-eye gleam. Judging by the brass “BBB” rondelle and the stamping on the pipe’s sides, this would appear to be from BBB’s production prior to 1980, after which the make was absorbed by Cadogan Investments, like many others.

The condition is great. There’s only one thing I will point out, that being the handful of scratches on the back rim of the bowl. The pipe comes with its original inner tube.

 

Details:

Length: 5.8″ / 147.3mm

Bowl Width: 0.79 / 20.06mm

Bowl Depth: 1.6″ / 40.64mm

Weight: 1.0oz / 30g