Dunhill 1992 Shell 4102 Bamboo Churchwarden Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates

Description

To veteran pipe smokers, Dunhill needs no introduction. Beginning in 1907, Alfred Dunhill began selling Dunhill pipes at the tobacconist shop he owned on London’s Duke Street. Very quickly, these pipes gained the reputation of being the ‘Rolls-Royce’ of pipes due to how expertly crafted they were. Today, Dunhill is likely Britain’s most famous pipe manufacturer, and continues to produce some of the most treasured pipes a smoker can buy.

During and after the Second World War, pipe-makers across the world suffered a briar shortage. Different companies solved this problem in different ways, with one solution being to make the briar part of a pipe smaller (meaning less briar was used) and making up the rest of the length with some kind of extension. One of the extension materials used was a type of bamboo, which came from Asia. The shorthand for this type of bamboo (along with a variety of others) is whangee. Whangee originally comes from a Mandarin term, 黃藜, or huáng lí, in pinyin. Following the war, Dunhill began using bamboo shank extensions, with these pipes stamped with a “W” for precisely that. In later decades, Dunhill would continue to utilize bamboo in their pipe designs, though much less frequently, and without the Whangee appellation. This churchwarden-length piece is a rare example of a bamboo-shank Dunhill from the early 1990s, dressed in the make’s far more familiar crisp, burgundy Shell Briar sandblast.

The condition is very good. Some rim darkening and some darkening of the bamboo itself, though the latter is a natural consequence of use over time and nothing to worry about.

Details:

Length: 7.2″ / 182.8mm

Bowl Width: 0.81 / 20.57mm

Bowl Depth: 1.55″ / 39.37mm

Weight: 1.3oz / 38g