Charatans Make Rarity Extra Large Bent Egg Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates [SOLD]

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 Rarity is (was) not a common series. In fact, I think I can count the ones I’ve seen up close on one hand. They’re Lane-era pipes and, as has been documented by Tad Gage, they came about from instances where the briar, during the course of its hand turning, would reveal grain that was great on the whole, but had one or two minor, cosmetic imperfections that were better served by sandblasting. This one is a magnificent, very large example of the Rarity series. I’ve categorized it as an ‘egg,’ but you could also call it a swan of sorts. The bowl sports nicely uniform straight grain, which transitions into a crisp sandblast both on the rim and from the base, right up along the shank.

The condition is great. There’s a touch of rim darkening, but nothing major.

 

Details:

Length: 7″ / 177.8mm

Bowl Width: 0.95 / 24.13mm

Bowl Depth: 2.53″ / 64.26mm

Weight: 3.6oz / 104g