Hardcastle Special Selection 109 Sandblasted Estate Briar Pipe

Description

Hardcastle was founded by Edmund Hardcastle in 1906, in London, England. Like many pipe-makers of the time, such as Barling and Sasieni Hardcastle was originally a family-owned business, with its ‘family era’ coming to an end over the course of the years 1936-1946. During this time, Dunhill partially, then fully, bought out the Hardcastle factory and name, later merging its Parker and Masta acquisitions with Hardcastle in 1967, creating Parker-Hardcastle.

I must say, the bulldog is one of my favorite shapes. Funnily enough, of all of the classic, Anglo-French staples, it’s also one of the most labor-intensive. This results in a great variety of bulldog shapes, on the one hand, as there are more steps needed to make one, and consequently more choices to be made when it comes to replicating a preferred interpretation for a make’s shape chart. On the other hand, this also creates more opportunities for getting the shape wrong. Thankfully, this Hardcastle bulldog is, to my mind, perfectly executed. It also has a lovely, tan sandblast with plenty of ring grain, which is not the easiest thing to pull off on such a shape.

The condition is very good. Some inner rim darkening and one small spot of char on the inner lip, but nothing major.

 

Details:

Length: 6″ / 152.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.77 / 19.55mm

Bowl Depth: 1.27″ / 32.25mm

Weight: 1.6oz / 46g