Charatan’s Make After Hours Freehand Vase Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates

Description

While Dunhill may be Britain’s most famous pipe brand, Charatan is not only older, but has the honor of being the first to have made its pipes entirely in-house. ‘Charatan’s Make’ referred to the fact that, at a time when other pipe companies were sourcing stummels and stems carved from other companies before assembling them in their factories and workshops, Charatan made every part of their pipes on the Charatan premises. So began a legacy of high-quality pipe-making under the Charatan name, one whose employees, at one time or another, included Joel Sasieni, and Ken Barnes and Barry Jones of James Upshall fame.

Charatan’s After Hours series is a fascinating one. The shape and style of these pipes varies wildly, with the one common factor between each of them being a yellow shank extension. The materials used for this extension also varied over the years (I’ve heard of horn, acrylic, and Bakelite examples), but the purpose was the same: to rescue a stummel in which was discovered, at some stage in its manufacture, a natural flaw in the shank portion. The shank was then cut off and discarded and the bowl was fitted with one of the aforementioned extensions. This particular After Hours is an example of what – in my experience – is very uncommon for pipes in this series: a sandblast finish. The shape plays with a very English freehand motif, that of the vase. Judging by the stamping, this pipe will be either a very late Reuben era (the first “freehand” Charatan was carved in 1958, per Ken Barnes), or a first Lane era (1961-65) pipe. The pipe does not have the “MADE BY HAND” stamp introduced in 1958 and subsequently continued by Lane, but this may simply have been due to the relatively small amount of space on the stummel left for stamping.

The condition is very good. Some finish fading and minor handling marks.

 

Details:

Length: 6″ / 152.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.90 / 22.86mm

Bowl Depth: 1.58″ / 40.13mm

Weight: 1.4oz / 40g