GBD Unique Smooth Freehand Sitter Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates

Description

GBD was one of several prominent examples of a French pipe brand that, due to certain circumstances, became a maker most associated with classic ‘British’ pipes. Founded in 1850 by the French trio Ganneval, Bondier & Donninger, the brand was bought by English company Oppenheimer at the beginning of the 20th century, who opened factories in London and Paris to meet an increasing demand for the make’s high-quality and highly desirable pipes. Partly owing to the make’s inventive, yet traditional shapes, and partly due to the high standards of their production, GBD pipes are particularly coveted by collectors, as well as those who simply appreciate classic, well-made smoking instruments.

While GBD is known as one of the great pipes makes in the Anglo-French tradition, there is one GBD line that became particularly coveted by smokers and collectors, despite breaking with that tradition almost entirely. This line is, of course, the GBD Unique, each of which was—as the name suggests—wholly distinct in design and unlike anything on a classical shape chart. These pipes were instead carved freehand, allowing for more modern compositions, but they were also predominantly carved by Horry Jamieson, a veteran English pipe-maker who had spent years working for GBD, and for Barling before that. Likely as a consequence, Jamieson’s Unique pipes did not follow the style of the “fancy” freehands associated with post-war Danish carvers, such as Preben Holm, instead incorporating and reinterpreting elements and motifs from English and French pipe design. This one, for example, takes the figure of a bent bulldog and “pulls” its form forward to create a sitter with the curvature of a cherrywood, or even a cavalier. This bold shaping and the pipe’s ruby stain almost give the impression of melted wax, especially toward the base of the stummel. Based on the brass GBD stem rondelle and the country of manufacture stamp, this is a pre-1981, and therefore “pre-Cadogan” (in the sense of the company’s mergers in the early 1980s).

The condition is great. Some inner rim darkening, but nothing major.

 

Details:

Length: 6.4″ / 162.5mm

Bowl Width: 0.80″ / 20.32mm

Bowl Depth: 1.64″ / 41.65mm

Weight: 2.3oz / 66g