Charatan’s Make After Hours Lane Era Freehand 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. As can be seen with this particular After Hours, this decision was a very smart one. After all, the bowl is impressive in its grain patterns and in its shaping, with the latter being almost figural in construction, and reminiscent of Gothic architecture.

The condition is great. Some very slight scratches on the bowl.

 

Details:

Length: 6.5″ / 165.1mm

Bowl Width: 0.90 / 22.86mm

Bowl Depth: 1.6″ / 40.64mm

Weight: 1.7oz / 90g